Dr. John Harding offers his opinion on 3 health issues that are limiting the productivity and financial returns in Western Canada. Piglet scours has a negative impact on growth rate and efficiency, and should be somewhat easy to control, but has proven to be rather difficult. Scours can be prevented by attaining a diagnosis on the specific infectious agent, improving sanitation, improving farrowing hygiene, creating a comfortable environment, treating all cases promptly, enhancing breeding herd immunity (vaccinations or feedback), and establishing good farrowing barn routines.

“Suis-ide” diseases refer to meningitis, septicaemia, arthritis, and heart valve infection. These diseases can cause severe illness or even sudden death. The specific strain should be cultured from the source of infection for preventative measure as well as for treatment procedures for the specific strain. These diseases can be prevented by again finding a specific diagnosis, mass medication programs, sanitation, adopt all-in-all-out rooms, reduce environment stress, vaccinate, and treat individual pigs. Condemnation originating in the finisher barn is the third area. Arthritis and abscesses are the most common problems. These directly affect the processing because of the consumers demand for a quality product. Some causes of condemned carcasses include retained testicles (ensure proper castration), tail chewing (provide toys for pigs to chew on), chronic arthritis (treat promptly), adhesions (aggressively treat respiratory diseases), milk spot livers (improve sanitation and de-worm), and erysipelas (vaccinate or treat).