An off-hand comment by a visiting veterinarian years earlier may have been the key to allowing Darryl Vandenberg to export hogs to China.
Sitting in the kitchen as a youngster, his legs dangling over the cupboards, he heard the vet tell his father, Joe, to always use a killed vaccine and not the new live vaccines.
For some reason that advice stuck with the small boy. Years later when Vandenberg took over the purebred hog farm from his father, he stuck with that advice, despite pressure from swine veterinarians to switch to a live vaccine.
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Affected immune system
His 100-sow herd is now one of the few herds on the Prairies that is PRRS-free. Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome causes a breakdown in the immune system that leaves pigs open to more disease. Some experts believe the PRRS outbreak in Prairie herds may be related to producers using a live vaccine to prevent the disease.
Julia Keenliside, an Alberta swine veterinarian, said she can’t say how many herds are PRRS positive, but the number is growing.
Because Vandenberg’s pigs are PRRS-free, he has one of five herds selected to export hogs to China. Vandenberg will supply about 50 pigs of the 211 that are being exported through Canada Livestock Services to China.
“That makes a guy feel kind of good,” said Vandenberg.
Bob Prestage, a Camrose-based partner in Canada Livestock Exchange, said PRRS knocked a lot of herds off the export list.
“This PRRS thing is a problem right across Canada,” said Perry Wilkes, another export partner.
Luckily for Vandenberg, the shortage of PRRS-free pigs is reflected in the price some countries are willing to pay for the hogs.
Because Vandenberg’s farm is a high-health herd, he is allowed to quarantine the animals on his farm. Visitors are not allowed in the barn and artificial insemination is the only way pigs are added to the barn.
PRRS can be transmitted through semen and Vandenberg only buys semen from PRRS-negative farms.
Once the pigs leave quarantine in the Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario herds, they will be taken to Chicago in special trucks equipped with feed and water. The hogs can’t leave the trucks because of the quarantine.
Once at Chicago they’ll be loaded into specially built crates made from new wood and flown to China. After the pigs are moved, the crates will be burned to reduce the risk of spreading disease, said Prestage.
Further testing
The hogs will be retested and quarantined again in China.
Vandenberg said the payoff for exporting generally outweighs the hassles. The quarantined hogs are given extensive blood tests, which show Vandenberg how the rest of the hogs on his farm are doing.
“We still want to supply the domestic markets. We want to keep the barns stocked, but it’s pretty exciting exporting so I’ll try to keep that going.”
