Glacier FarmMedia – If African swine fever arrives in Canada, a lot of things will happen. Response plans will be implemented, quarantines will be imposed and animal movements locked down. Biosecurity will ramp up to crisis levels. Information and updates will flow between federal and provincial chief veterinary offices and the industry. Check out our […] Read more
Hog Hub
Detective work solves swine sickness mystery
Maple Leaf official recounts the challenges faced while trying to put a stop to a streptococcus zooepidemicus outbreak
WINNIPEG — When a multiplication barn had a streptococcus zooepidemicus outbreak in March 2019, Maple Leaf staff scrambled to find out what it was and how to treat it. They dealt with it as suggested by worldwide authorities. Believing the gilts were over the illness, workers sent them out to four sow barns. Within a […] Read more
VIDEO: Load-out risky time for hog farms
WINNIPEG — What if the truck driver asks to enter the hog barn to use the toilet? Does the operation have a protocol for that? That’s a question asked of Dr. Julia Keenliside at the Manitoba Swine Seminar. “Everybody’s got to work out what your procedures are because that happens,” said Keenliside, an Edmonton based […] Read more
VIDEO: ‘Split milking’ recommended to prevent piglet crushing
A technology developer from Denmark has devised a system that provides smaller piglets with a safer way to feed
A problem with crushed piglets and a problem with hungry piglets might be aspects of the same problem. So suggested Lars Brunse, a Danish swine expert and technology developer whose company examined 308 crushed piglets to see if they had similarities. It found that 78 percent had empty stomachs and 56 percent had never had […] Read more
New and emerging swine diseases deserve close watch
Veterinarians are taught that when we hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras. This is sage advice to help maintain a diagnostic process based on probabilities. If I come across a nursery pig that has died suddenly with organs that have tiny hemorrhages and slightly enlarged lymph nodes, I will request tests to confirm a […] Read more
Too early to say 2024 will be stronger year for hog prices
Canadian pig producers are happy to put 2023 and its financial losses behind them, but will 2024 be any better? It appears producers in Canada and the United States are reducing the size of their breeding herds, which normally would reduce the supply of pigs and pork and support the price. But the January U.S. […] Read more
Big futures trades harder in all-electronic world
Report concludes all-electronic trading has not affected the cost per trade, although pit trading did add an option value
WINNIPEG — Who were the winners and losers when Chicago shut its live trading floors for livestock futures and sent everything to the electronic world? That’s a question two economists at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission have attempted to answer in a new article in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Large futures users, […] Read more
Industry leads efforts to fight wild pigs in Man.
HOLLAND, Man. — Manitoba’s wild pig-busters have moved fast to find, trap and destroy the monsters since they got set up a couple of years ago. They aim to entirely eliminate the invasive beast in just a few years. Related story: Man. wild pig control requires different strategy “It’ll probably take most of a decade,” […] Read more
Uncertainty looms for hog sector in the wake of Prop 12
The impacts of a California animal welfare law that took full effect on the first day of 2024 are already being felt, according to Manitoba Pork general manager Cam Dahl. “Yes, Jan. 1 was a deadline but, in truth, Proposition 12 has been enforced since July,” he said. Proposition 12, or Prop 12, is a […] Read more
Carcass competition spices up Man. hog show
Slumping lean hog prices have made for trying times recently in the industry, but producer interest was high at trade show
BRANDON — Anyone who wanted to meet a young, competitive, chatty hog producer last week just had to hang outside the glass-fronted hog cooler at the Brandon Hog and Livestock Show. There, throughout the event, groups of young men, mostly Hutterites, came by, approached the glass and appraised the top five carcasses on display. To […] Read more
