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Pork Producers Advised to be Aware of Disease Threats as Temperatures Drop

By Bruce Cochrane

An Alberta based swine veterinarian is advising western Canadian pork producers to be on the alert for a number of potential disease threats heading into the cool fall season.

The Canadian Western Swine Health Intelligence Network continues to track swine disease in western Canada and provide swine health surveillance data.

Dr. Egan Brockhoff, with Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer, says, if we look at information coming out of the Canadian Western Swine Health Intelligence Network, it's been a busy summer.

Dr. Egan Brockhoff-Prairie Swine Health Services:
There's no question that we've had increased challenges with Influenza A viruses and that seems to be consistent across the country and so we really want producers to be aware that influenza is an increased challenge and influenza is causing more challenge today than it did 10 years ago.

It seems to be more aggressive, it seems to cause more severe disease so be on the look out for that.

It's not the nice simple influenza that we had 20 years ago.
We're constantly faced with Streptococcus Suis here.
We are still hopefully in the warm summer days but our nights are starting to cool off a little bit and as we move forward into the fall time we're going start to see more of our bacteria pathogens, Strep, Glasser's, increased challenge in your barn so something to already start thinking about is how are we gong to deal with ventilation as we go into the barn?

There continues to be challenges with Swine Dysentery and Swine Dysentery like pathogens across the country, and especially in western Canada here where we're monitoring them closely.

Dr. Brockhoff stresses, it's not just PED that we're talking about.
He says we still have PRRS and more aggressive strains of PRRS than we did 10 years ago and we have new strains of Swine Dysentery and Swine Dysentery like pathogens and those are certainly creating biosecurity challenges so it's important to keep aware of what's going on.

Source: Farmscape


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U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan | Made by Producers for Producers

Video: U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan | Made by Producers for Producers

Join Jill Brokaw, a third-generation pig farmer and staff member of the National Pork Board, as she dives into the vital role of the US Swine Health Improvement Plan, also known as US SHIP. The program establishes a national playbook of standards for monitoring African swine fever and classical swine fever.

Why Should Pork Producers Care? If a disease breaks out, officials will establish a control area to help contain the disease. This plan is designed to mitigate risk and demonstrate freedom of disease at the site level. The goal is to support business continuity outside of the control area in case of an outbreak.

How Will the Pork Industry Use US SHIP? US SHIP uses already existing programs to support the standards for biosecurity, traceability and disease surveillance.

Biosecurity: This plan uses your completed Secure Pork Supply plan to demonstrate compliance with the biosecurity program standards and shows your ability to reduce the risk of disease introduction.

Traceability: AgView can be used to demonstrate compliance with the traceability standards and the ability to electronically provide State and Federal agencies the traceability information they need to determine where disease is and isn’t.

Disease Surveillance: The Certified Swine Sampler Collector Program helps expand the number of people certified to take samples. In the event of a large-scale foreign animal disease outbreak, we will need a trained group of sample collectors to help animal health officials find where the disease is present. This is to help you demonstrate freedom of disease and support the permitted movement of animals.

Getting Started with US SHIP:

1. Enroll in U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan

2. Share 30 days of movement data

3. Have a completed Secure Pork Supply Plan

4. Become U.S. SHIP certified

5. Maintain communication with your state

Takeaway: U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan helps safeguard animal health. Together, we're creating a sustainable future for pork production in the United States and taking steps to strengthen the business of U.S. pork producers everywhere