The nation’s swine industry is bouncing back after recent disease outbreaks that cut into the herd size and slashed productivity. Despite the use of modern technology and heightened biosecurity, Mother Nature continues to stay one step ahead of the industry. That resulted in some major disease outbreaks in main swine production areas, including Iowa and Minnesota last year and earlier this year, and it cuts into profit margins for producers.
Pig mortality is a costly epidemic in the swine industry and even with all of today’s modern technology rates have been growing over the last decade, according to Joel DeRouchey, Extension swine specialist at Kansas State University.
“Actually, if you look at the total amount of animals, approximately one -third of the animals of swine never make it to market,” DeRouchey says.
He says the reason is that diseases like porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) are developing more virulent strains.
“The reality is some of the PRRS strains mutate over time,” DeRouchey explains. “They figure out ways to keep surviving as we implement better technology and better protocols.”
Speakers at this year’s International Pig Livability conference in Omaha, Neb., say this has caused a paradigm shift to look at the productivity of a sow based on pork produced per lifetime.
Brad Lawrence, global applied swine technology lead for Novus International, says, “Now we get the cumulative benefits of litter size, longevity of that sow, and also the survivability and growth potential of those pigs that she did produce. What that does is lets us get a better economic view of what that sow’s potential really is on a kilograms of pork or pounds of pork produced per sow lifetime.”
But Lawrence says that also includes the survivability of the offspring which is a challenge with disease.
“We’re losing way too many pigs from the time they’re born until they actually reach market weight, which further drives up the cost of production to produce the pork,” he explains.
To prevent disease, the industry is working to curb the viruses and bacteria that cause PRRS and porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), which survive in feed.
Alex Hintz, senior technical services manager in North America for Novus International, says this includes the use of feed additives and other technologies.
“What we’re working hard on is doing the research and investigating,” Hintz says. “Is there something we can do to the feed for the sows that’s going to prevent the viruses from surviving and then being transmitted to the sows, giving the pigs and sows a production impact at the end of the day?”
Researchers are also looking at ways to build immunity in the sow herd through nutrition and proper care after gestation to decrease culling rates, says Laura Greiner, associate professor at Iowa State University and director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center.
“Between gestation and lactation, there’s a period of about one week that’s extremely demanding, and it’s when we see the greatest loss of animals,” she says. “We want to make sure that we’re addressing that in terms of appropriate animal care.”
Otherwise, these experts says cull rates for gilts and sows can reach as high as 20%, cutting into producers’ profits.
