When Kaydance Hinn went to work for the Mycoplasma Lab at the University of Minnesota, she admits she didn’t even know what Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae was, yet alone how to do coding. However, she learned a lot about both when the opportunity arose to assist with the state’s M. hyopneumoniae elimination initiative by developing a cost estimation tool to help producers.
M. hyopneumoniae, a bacterium that affects swine, results in significant production losses to the industry. The pathogen causes respiratory issues, which decrease the growth rate of pigs and negatively impacts animal welfare. As part of her summer project, Hinn went to work to create an estimation cost calculator for M. hyopneumoniae that allows producers to input their specific farm data to receive an estimated value of the cost of M. hyopneumoniae in their operation type.
Data was provided from several production systems and published literature across the U.S. In addition, she received a partial budget, which included data from various farms across the Midwest, from Paul Yeske, DVM, with the Swine Vet Center. The data served as the baseline for comparing M.hyopneumoniae production factors. Values also became the negative standard that producers could compare their data to, she says.
More information was obtained evaluating the effect of M. hyopneumoniae on sow farm production indicators. In addition, data were utilized from a large Midwest production system, examining M. hyopneumoniae with a porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSv) co-infection.
“I utilized Dr. Yeske’s spreadsheet for the majority of the calculator’s content, including equations,” Hinn explains. “I used AI, Google Sheets and Google App Script to build the physical calculator. Producers can input their farm’s specific data, including piglets weaned per year, mortality rate, ADG, and elimination protocol information, if applicable. Then, the Google Sheet will complete the back-end calculations, and results will be displayed in an easy-to-use format.”
Hinn’s innovation and knowledge helped her win the coveted Morrison Swine Innovator Prize. She was one of seven finalists recognized during the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. She presented her research findings during a session at the conference.
“Producers can now see the economic impact of M. hyopneumoniae disease on their farm,” she says. “This information can educate producers about the benefits of undergoing elimination programs on sow farms, and eradicating this disease from not only their farms but also the state of Minnesota.”
Producers can also learn about the return on investment if they choose to undergo an elimination protocol.
“Elimination protocols have been proven successful and continue to maintain a negative status even in pig-dense areas,” Hinn says. “While these values are not exact, this calculator can help inform producers of possible opportunity losses that can be further discussed with their veterinarian. This information will aid in realizing the potential loss that M. hyopneumoniae is contributing to at their farm, and encourage producers to take the next steps in helping Minnesota eradicate M. hyopneumoniae.”
During the process of developing this calculator, Hinn says she learned that AI can be a great tool. She used it to guide how she set up the Google Sheet.
“I was also able to give it a prompt and it would create code snippets that I could include in the script,” she says. “However, AI can only do so much. Many times, bigger mistakes would be made if I was too trusting of AI, which would take me a long time to fix. Towards the end of the project, I did learn how to code some of it myself in order to alleviate this issue.”
Hinn’s calculator is currently live on the Minnesota Pork Board’s website.
