Close call in Alberta | Western Canadian hog industry funding health group to monitor disease issues
RED DEER —A positive porcine epidemic diarrhea sample in Alberta was a close call and has made the industry more vigilant.
“Alberta herds are still PED free. We have had environmental positives, which remind us on a weekly basis that this bug is standing outside banging on the door,” Alberta Pork chair Frank Novak said at the organization’s annual meeting in Calgary Nov. 6.
“We have the luxury of having one of the cleanest herds in the world.”
A western swine health alliance was formed recently, representing the production of 275,000 sows. Participants paid $1 per sow into a fund to deal with PED and other potential diseases that could threaten the industry.
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“We need to find a long-term sustainable business model for dealing with this bug and the one that comes after that,” he said.
Delegates to Alberta Pork also wanted to send a strong message by passing a resolution to make the pork quality assurance program mandatory. About 95 percent of all hogs shipped in the province are certified under the program’s health and welfare program.
Certified farms receive regular veterinary visits, which could detect a serious disease before it becomes an epidemic.
However, there are concerns that hobby farms with a few pigs could still get the disease and spread it.
“The issue is, what can we do to keep PED out of Alberta?” said Ben Woolley of Sunterra Farms.
The loss of eight million pigs in the United States over the last year has forced the industry to consider all potential risks.
The experiences of one company in central Ohio were described at the Red Deer swine technology workshop held Nov. 5.
Heirmerl Farms had PED outbreaks as well as the delta corona virus, which killed 50,000 pigs on two of its three units.
“What we have learned is there are a lot of holes in our defence layers,” said Steve Stitzlein, who manages the company’s sow units.
“I think everybody in the U.S. has upped their biosecurity levels.”
The operation finishes market hogs and sells gilts to other farms.
One of the units, Pleasantville Farm, has 2,500 sows. Its first outbreak was the day before American Thanksgiving last year.
Stitzlein suspects the disease was introduced in a farm-owned truck returning from a slaughter plant. It was probably not washed and dried properly.
“We were our own worst enemy at that point because we brought it into our herds,” he said.
Five other farms in the region got PED with the only common link being a feed mill.
“People say it won’t go through feed, but I am guessing that is how we got it in there,” he said.
Stitzlein is also concerned that the virus survives in stored manure, so agitation could bring it to the surface and cause new infection.
Commercial companies spreading manure are told not to agitate pits and instead may only suck out the liquid material.
He had experience with transmissible gastroenteritis but found this disease was far more severe.
The farm weaned piglets as young as 10 days and then moved them from the farrowing unit to nursery barns to get ahead of the disease. Many died in transit.
The farm had 100 percent mortality among pigs less than 10 days of age for four weeks and then 50 percent mortality for two weeks.
Abortions also spiked among sows in the early stages of pregnancy.
Sows were fed back infected material from dead pigs, and workers made a mist of manure and sprayed it on the noses of the breeding herd to make the disease run its course faster.
He said barn workers struggled with the devastation.
“It was very hard on the crew. They had very low motivation to come to work.”
Owner Jim Heimerl regularly came to the farms and talked to the staff and monitored biosecurity.
A good manager at the Pleasantville operation worked with the staff and encouraged them to focus on caring for the sows, although another farm did not handle the situation as well. Staff did not show up to care for the pigs or quit.
The farm now has good success breeding sows, although first and second parity females require more care.
Many had hard udders because they had never nursed before.
Biosecurity has also tightened for trucks, supplies and staff. People must shower in and out when they are in the barns and wear clean boots.
Feed truck drivers wear plastic boots and step on disposable floor mats when they get out of their trucks.
Trucks are cleaned, and a building was set up to dry them for 15 minutes at 70 C.
