Sucking porcine epidemic diarrhea virus into a hog barn isn’t something a pig producer wants to do, but it seems to happen too often.
“All of our hog barns are essentially gigantic vacuum cleaners,” said Tony Nikkel, director of veterinary services for Progressive Group.
Negative air pressure can pull huge amounts of air into a barn. When the loadout door is opened for a truck, it can suck dust off the back of the truck. Because road and truck dust has been shown to carry PED virus, that’s a large but manageable risk for barn managers.
Read Also
Ag In Motion 2025 site hub of activity
day before Ag in Motion preview.
To avoid sucking PED into barns, a multi-pronged approach should be taken to reduce both negative air pressure and dust, including:
- Treating laneways leading to the loadout dock to suppress dust.
- Cleaning off the backs of trucks, which can carry infected dust.
- Repairing bashed-up truck bumpers, which can carry pockets of infected dust.
- Reducing the negative air pressure that pulls air into the barn when the loadout door is opened.
Nikkel said air suction can be reduced by closing room doors before a truck shows up. The exhaust fans in the room pull in air, so if the outside door is opened, a suction pathway is created. That can be avoided by shutting doors.
In between loading groups of pigs, the loadout door can be closed, pigs can be brought out of their rooms and held in the hallway, and the interior doors closed again. Then the loadout door can be opened and little dust should be sucked into the barn.
Dust hasn’t always been seen as a major vector of PED, but Nikkel said his company found PED infected road-type dust in the attics of barns and in hallways, so it believes dust minimization is a key form of PED prevention.
“We recognized dust is probably… a significant form or method of spread of this virus,” said Nikkel.
