SHIC Introduces New Swine Disease Reporting System PCR Dashboard

May 20, 2024

The Swine Health Information Center has introduced a new tool to help pork producers and veterinarians track eight different key swine disease causing pathogens.As part of its May domestic swine disease surveillance report, the Swine Health Information Center has unveiled its new Swine Disease Reporting System PCR dashboard.

The new dashboard, which was funded by a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant, is a compilation of all of the PCR data for the eight pathogens monitored by the project.SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says this dashboard is a really exciting addition.

Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:

It provides a visual way to detect trends of eight different pathogens of concern and those are covering some of the main ones that we see in swine production.The goal is really to assist producers making informed decisions as they look to manage their herd health and not just in their particular region or state but across the U.S.

Since we've had discussions about different disease eradication or elimination efforts, this will also help to provide a more visual way to look at case submissions, look at the states where activity is occurring and also look by age groups and sample types submitted.I think this is going to have a wide range of use.

Obviously producers and veterinarians are probably going to be the primary users of this.But, since it's a publicly accessible site, other researchers, other folks in the animal health industry, even regulatory folks may be looking at this just to understand what's going on in the swine industry and see a snapshot of disease challenges that we're facing.

I think this is really going to be a good way to continue to monitor trends across different diseases and age groups but also see what activity is going on state by state.

The Swine Disease Reporting System PCR dashboard can be accessed through the Swine Health Information Center web site at swinehealth.org.
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Video: US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Eric van Heugten, PhD, professor and swine extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recently spoke at the Iowa Swine Day Pre-Conference Symposium, titled Soybean Meal 360°: Expanding our horizons through discoveries and field-proven feeding strategies for improving pork production. The event was sponsored by Iowa State University and U.S. Soy.

Soybean meal offers pig producers a high-value proposition. It’s a high-quality protein source, providing essential and non-essential amino acids to the pig that are highly digestible and palatable. Studies now show that soybean meal provides higher net energy than current National Research Council (NRC) requirements. Plus, soybean meal offers health benefits such as isoflavones and antioxidants as well as benefits with respiratory diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

One of several ingredients that compete with the inclusion of soybean meal in pig diets is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS).

“With DDGS, we typically see more variable responses because of the quality differences depending on which plant it comes from,” said Dr. van Heugten. “At very high levels, we often see a reduction in performance especially with feed intake which can have negative consequences on pig performance, especially in the summer months when feed intake is already low and gaining weight is at a premium to get them to market.”

Over the last few decades, the industry has also seen the increased inclusion of crystalline amino acids in pig diets.

“We started with lysine at about 3 lbs. per ton in the diet, and then we added methionine and threonine to go to 6 to 8 lbs. per ton,” he said. “Now we have tryptophan, isoleucine and valine and can go to 12 to 15 lbs. per ton. All of these, when price competitive, are formulated into the diet and are displacing soybean meal which also removes the potential health benefits that soybean meal provides.”