Swine industry workers coping with the emotional stress involved in dealing with the devastation caused by Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea are being encouraged to reach out for support.
Since the end of April over 50 Manitoba swine farms have been confirmed infected with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
Janice Goldsborough, the Human Resources and Training Coordinator with Manitoba Pork, says, while the presence of PED and changes in routine to deal with the heightened risk of infection have increased stress levels, the situation for workers in infected barns, especially those working with baby pigs, has been particularly difficult.
Janice Goldsborough-Manitoba Pork:
For some of our barns, like our sow barns, the older pigs aren't impacted nearly as badly as our weanlings or the nurseries.
When the disease hits a nursery barn, that has the hardest impact because the little baby pigs are having the hardest time battling this disease.
For the employees this becomes very stressful because sometimes unfortunately there's not much that they can do other than to try and make the pigs comfortable and they have to deal with what ever comes along, whether it's humanely euthanizing them or trying to battle this disease so it doesn't keep spreading throughout the barns.
Source : Farmscape