When the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC), along with the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research and Pork Checkoff, joined together to launch a $2.3M two-year Wean-to-Harvest Biosecurity Research Program in the fall of 2022, they had a big goal. They wanted to investigate cost-effective, innovative technologies, protocols and ideas to enhance biosecurity implementation during the Wean-to-Harvest phases of swine production.
The results received to date provide opportunities for U.S. pork producers to make changes to immediately enhance their biosecurity protocols, SHIC writes in its September newsletter.
“Proactively enhancing wean-to-harvest biosecurity will help control the next emerging disease in the US pork industry,” SHIC says.
Transportation continues to be a concern for disease transmission within Wean-to-Harvest and other phases of production, SHIC notes. As well, continued assessment of on-farm biosecurity is key to finding better solutions for the future.
Of the 18 funded projects, six have been completed so far. Here are 10 powerful take homes surrounding transport biosecurity and on-farm biosecurity to help you enhance protocols on your pig farm.
Transport Biosecurity Take Homes
1. An updated inventory for public truck washes in the main hog producing states is now available for producers and can be located at https://www.ipic.iastate.edu/truckwash.html.
2. Tools are available for producers to automatically track trailers between the farm and the plant and record sanitation status of trailers based on truck wash visits through the use of GPS-based tracking and the CleanTrailer app.
3. Livestock trailer cleanliness can be objectively measured to determine sanitation status after a commercial truck wash using ATP swabs and ATP bioluminometers (more ATP = more potential microbial contamination).
4. Areas of a trailer that are least likely to be adequately cleaned after a commercial truck wash are the nose access door and the back door flush gate. These areas may be targeted for on-site testing or additional cleaning.
On-Farm Biosecurity Take Homes
5. Animal caretaker motivation and compliance for biosecurity protocols can be positively influenced by rewarding personnel when biosecurity protocols are executed and providing supervisor support and performance feedback to employees on biosecurity practices.
6. Manure pumping and land application is a risk for the introduction of PRRSV into farms, with a higher risk to nurseries compared to grow-finish sites.
7. Risk of PRRSV introduction through a manure pumping event increased if conducted on a site where pigs had been placed less than 16 weeks.
8. Robotic power washers can reduce manual labor hours required for washing but may increase overall water usage and room cleaning time due to manual power washing touch up required to achieve adequate sanitation of sites.
9. Cleaning feeders can be a limiting factor to the efficiency of robotic power washers and ensuring access to feeders is important in designing effective wash systems.
10. Nylon tear-resistant fan socks are effective exhaust fan coverings that can be used to reduce virus spread through large dust particle dispersion from the exhaust fan surface.
Your Next Read: Mosquitos Are On the Rise: Why Pork Producers Need to Pay Attention
