The Morrison Swine Innovator Prize was designed to support DVM students who want to specialize in swine, facilitate networking with industry leaders and inspire innovative thinking and problem-solving skills. Bob Morrison’s mantra, “Learn. Teach. Have fun.” is put to work through this annually anticipated event that allows students to do just that, explains Perle Zhitnitskiy, associate professor in the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine who oversees the program. Here’s a look at the seven students who competed for the 2024 Morrison Swine Innovator Prize at the 2024 Leman Swine Conference.
Thomson Wins Morrison Swine Innovator Prize for Sow Organ Prolapse Research
High sow mortality rates, particularly first and second-litter sows, around the time of parturition continues to baffle the U.S. pork industry. Current mortality rates are up to 17% in sows, of which pelvic organ prolapse accounts for 12%. When Savannah Thomson, 23, set out to discover preventative measures for sow organ prolapse, she quickly realized more tools were needed.
Veterinarians often use quantitative pelvic measurements to predict calving and lambing ease and prolapse, but the swine industry lacks morphometric (sow dimension) factors that might contribute to dystocia, prolapse, or sow livability, Thomson explains.
In order to find answers to this large and unsolved problem within the swine industry, she came up with the idea to create the Pig-O-Meter to provide ground truth data for collection of hip and tail heights. Read the full story here.
A New Tool for the Swine Industry to Detect and Isolate PRRS Virus
A new study shows that porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) can be detected and isolated from deep tracheal secretions antemortem. What does this mean for the pork industry?
“PRRSV is a highly infectious agent that results in economically significant disease in swine. Although there are numerous sensitive sample types for detection and isolation of PRRSV from swine, many require post-mortem collection,” explained Casondra Snow, a second-year student at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine.
Research has shown that the probability of acquiring a PRRSV viral isolate from a sample increases when the Ct value obtained from PCR is low, she added. Deep tracheal secretions are a sample type that is used to detect other respiratory pathogens, such as Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae. However, the ability to detect and isolate PRRSV on ante-mortem tracheal secretions has not previously been assessed.
Snow wanted to evaluate the feasibility to detect and isolate PRRSV from deep tracheal secretions as her project with Boehringer-Ingelheim Animal Health through Iowa State University’s Swine Veterinary Internship Program. Read the full story here.
Needleless Vaccination: What’s the Impact on Pain and Stress in Pigs?
Needleless intradermal (ID) vaccination of pigs in Canada is a growing practice. Compared to Western Canada, the technology uptake in Ontario has been slow despite the approval of NFID devices. ID vaccination is believed to cause less pain and reduce stress responses compared to intramuscular (IM) vaccination. It is also more efficient for producers and carries less risk of adverse reactions or injury to staff through contact with needles.
Madeline Benedetti, a second-year veterinary student at the Ontario Veterinary College, set out to prove these hypotheses in an environment realistic to Canadian swine farms.
Using realistic methods and relevant parameters for producers, her goal was to reiterate the importance of animal welfare within common practices of the swine industry, and to help pave the way for newer technology to enter Canadian markets to further improve the experience of producers. Read the full story here.
Research Identifies Acidification Target to Inhibit E.Coli Growth
Escherichia coli (E. coli) infection continues to be a challenge in the nursery, causing morbidity and mortality in weaned pigs. Antimicrobial-resistant E. coli is becoming a prevalent concern as multi-drug treatments are not yielding successful results, explained Rachel Retterath, a second-year student in the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine.
One alternative treatment of E. coli is to acidify the drinking water to decrease and prevent the growth of E. coli. Previous research shows that E. coli is least likely to colonize in a pH between 4 and 5.
“I wanted to find a specific pH value for producers to target,” she says. “With antimicrobial resistance on the rise, it is important that we are working on prevention strategies to mitigate the effects of these diseases and outbreaks. Therefore, if a flow is known to have E. coli, we can give them a concrete target to aim for with water acidification.” Read the full story here.
Data for Dummies: How Do We Make Use of Data We Didn’t Know We Had?
The swine industry uses data to make decisions that can ultimately improve productivity, minimize losses and identify areas of improvement, said Ayva Bohr, a first-year student in the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine.
The substantial amount of data collected on a farm every day usually includes reproductive data, sow and piglet performance information, and employee task tracking.
“Most producers use a production record management software but may only look at a small weekly summary of the data to make decisions. In some instances, certain pieces of data never make it out of the database and into a summary at all,” Bohr says. “This poses the question: What are we missing? How can this data be used to its full potential?” Read the full story here.
How Do We Unlock the Potential of Inflammatory Biomarkers?
Just like inflammation has negative implications on humans, it also creates challenges for growing pigs. Inflammation’s impact on pig growth can have a sizable impact on profitability. Previous research has shown that serum vitamin A levels can be utilized as a biomarker to quantify inflammation.
Last summer, Macy Moore, a second-year student in the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, pursued a research study to gain a better understanding of biomarker results and how producers and veterinarians can use and apply them within their operations and systems through the Swine Veterinary Internship Program.
“When sampled prior to weaning, serum vitamin A levels correlate with finishing performance,” Moore explained. “Farms are analyzed individually by looking at their sufficiency of the biomarker, so a greater number of high values in a distribution indicates greater sufficiency and less inflammation.” Read full story here.
Is There a Link Between Iron and Piglet Body Temperature?
Can administering two 200-mg doses of injectable iron dextran to piglets within the first 10 days of life offer a benefit when it comes to a pig’s ability to regulate body temperature?
Recent research has shown that administering two doses offers several benefits including increased average daily gain and feed efficiency, resulting in pigs that are 7 lb. heavier at marketing compared to the once-standard 200-mg dose, Jones explained.
In addition, one study showed that iron dose significantly impacted the expression of many genes at weaning, one of these being a 4-fold increase in the gene encoding for the TRPV1 receptor. TRPV1 is known to be involved in core body temperature regulation. Jones set out to see if this finding would translate to a discernible difference in the pig’s ability to regulate body temperature. Read the full story here.
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