By Bruce Cochrane
An animal care specialist with Manitoba Pork is encouraging pork producers to maintain their focus on biosecurity as the spring approaches.
Two sow sites in Manitoba became infected with PED in September, and a finisher site in January, bringing the total number of Manitoba cases to five.
Mark Fynn, an animal care specialist with Manitoba Pork says, we still have transport coming back from the U.S. and to high traffic facilities within Manitoba that are continually infected, so we need to stay ever vigilant when it comes to biosecurity.
Mark Fynn-Manitoba Pork:
Considering the amount of contact that we have with these high traffic sites and with the U.S., as our Manitoba pork industry I'd say we've been quite successful in only having five farms that have actually been affected by the disease, so I think we're doing a good job of keeping it at bay but now is not the time to let down our efforts on biosecurity.
It's really something that we're going to have to keep up continuously and indefinitely especially in a season like this.
We always talk about PEDv being easier to move around and also have a longer survival time when it comes to cold weather as compared to hot and dry weather.
In the shoulder seasons, fall and spring, we also add to the mix a lot of precipitation and slushy conditions like we're dealing with now.
It's very easy for the virus to move around in those conditions, on transport trailers, on shoes and so forth and so we have to be extra vigilant about keeping those things clean and making sure that anything that's picked up is removed before we get back to our swine farms.
Fynn says with the slushy conditions it's easier to pick up the virus at high traffic sites so we need to be extra vigilant there and make sure we're getting a full wash, disinfect, dry and third party inspections on the trailers that visit those sites or any high traffic site and those coming back from the U.S. and follow good biosecurity on our own sites.
Source: Farmscape