By Bruce Cochrane
A Red Deer based swine veterinarian is encouraging pork producers to step up their focus on ventilation heading into the summer.
The Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network, which gathers and compiles swine health information from across Canada, published its latest report at the end of the first quarter.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, with Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer, told Alberta Pork's monthly PED update last week, the report identified what we're seeing the most and what we should be paying attention to.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff-Prairie Swine Health Services:
In the springtime influenza is a big one.
We see influenza moving through the human population and then, not surprisingly, we see it follow into the barns occasionally.
Influenza is a disease that we would expect to see rise through the spring.
There's been lots of discussion about post weaning colibacillosis, certainly something that everyone wants to pay attention to.
Nursery scours essentially is what that is and nursery scours is typically caused by a swine specific E. Coli and has been described as something of concern in Canada.
Certainly, as ventilation challenges go up and down in the spring, warm days, cool nights, we start dealing with ear necrosis and tail biting and that's really often a function of managing the environment so it's important that we continue to look and manage those things, get your ventilation set up really solid for going into these summer months.
Tail biting is such an interesting and very hair pulling event in a barn and certainly we can provide information on how to manage those but there's no simple solutions.
But it is certainly a challenge we would expect to see grow through the spring months and then settle off into the summer as managing the environment becomes simpler.
Dr. Brockhoff says, in general, swine health in Canada is very good and we seem to be controlling the few diseases that we're constantly dealing with at this time of year.
Source: Farmscape