By Emily McDowell, DVM, Pipestone
Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (MHP) continues to cause problems in herds across the U.S. MHP is a bacterial respiratory disease that is often seen in downstream pigs, but has a sow farm origin. These bacteria can cost $5-$8 per downstream pig due to losses in gain and mortality, specifically in the mid-late finishing phase. These losses can be even higher when located in pig-dense areas as respiratory co-infections with influenza and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) elevate the challenges.
Pipestone has been doing MHP eliminations on sow farms for the last five to six years. The MHP elimination process involves the following steps.
1. Loading the farm with gilts.
2. Closing the farm to gilts/gilt delivery disruption.
3. Exposure of the entire population to MHP.
The MHP elimination can be done for MHP only, but most commonly, these eliminations have been paired with PRRS virus eliminations as the timeline for gilt disruption/herd closure are similar. Our initial MHP elimination success rate was around 50% but we have learned from the challenges and estimate our success rate closer to 80% to 85% today.
Recently, a producer in northwest Iowa came to us with a MHP problem. He sources pigs from a sow farm in South Dakota that is MHP-positive. Medication use in this downstream flow is high. We presented the pros and cons of this strategy and walked the sow farm through each step of this process.
At the end of the herd closure timeline (estimated at 280 days), we tested the population to verify the sow farm population was no longer shedding and we introduced gilts again. Over the next year, we verified that the sow farm was negative.
The downstream flow to this sow farm no longer has chronic, coughing pigs in mid- to late-finishing and has reduced their medication use, reduced their death loss by 2% to 3%, and improved gain. When looking at the costs of the MHP elimination and the benefits to the downstream health and performance, we expect a return on investment in less than one year.
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