When pork producers medicate water lines, they assume a certain setting delivers exactly that amount to the drinker. But research by North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine student Molly Jones revealed that only 25% of systems hit that target. Her solution—a simple, visual tool called PigmentRx that earned her the coveted Morrison Swine Innovator Prize at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference.
What’s in Your Water?
Both underdosing and overdosing medication can create problems for pigs. Underdosing may result in ineffective treatment, higher mortality, prolonged disease spread and increased risk of antimicrobial resistance. Meanwhile, overdosing may create wasted products, increased input costs and potential toxicity.
“A medicator set at 1:128 is generally assumed to deliver a 1:128 dilution to the drinker,” she says. “We don’t typically verify whether these doses are correct, so I completed an initial project to investigate medicator accuracy.”
Medicator performance was evaluated on commercial farms using two independent approaches: stock solution disappearance relative to water meter readings and spectrophotometric measurement of a dye collected at the drinkers. Although the two methods showed moderate agreement, substantial variation in delivered concentration was identified, Jones says.
In addition, field surveys demonstrated that inaccurate delivery extends beyond the medicator itself. Within individual barns, drinker concentrations sometimes ranged from near-target to greater than 1:400, illustrating substantial within-barn variation associated with water flow. Certain plumbing configurations allowed medicated and unmedicated water to mix between barns, resulting in markedly different concentrations despite a common treatment protocol, she says.
Additional opportunities for inaccurate delivery between the stock bucket and the pigs include degradation due to heat generated by stir pumps, product interactions, improper handling, stock solution settling and biofilm interactions. These failures can also occur simultaneously, compounding reductions in product availability, Jones points out.
“Only 25% of the barns evaluated in this study had dilution rates within 10% of our standard 1:128 rate, which inspired me to create a practical, on-farm method for verifying adequate product delivery,” she says.
Troubleshoot Your Water System
Jones developed PigmentRx, a field-ready colorimetric tool developed from spectrophotometric data, that visualizes dilution at the drinker without specialized equipment. PigmentRx was developed using nine Reload Pack DT 1x dilutions prepared with water from 13 farms. Full-spectrum absorbance data were used to create a visual scale representing each dilution.
In the field, a Reload Pack stock solution is run at the theoretical 1:128 dilution rate, drinker samples are collected and they are compared with the scale to identify dosing inaccuracies and within- or between-barn variation. She designed the tool to encourage field-based problem solving by bridging the gap between lab-based measurements and barn-level practicality.
“The goal of PigmentRx is to turn something that normally requires lab equipment into a simple visual check that can be used on the farm,” Jones says. “By adding a commonly used dye to the stock solution, and comparing water collected at the drinker to a color scale, producers can quickly identify whether products are being delivered near the intended concentration. This gives producers the opportunity to troubleshoot their water systems before a delivery problem becomes a treatment failure.”
Its simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and use of readily available materials make it well-suited for widespread adoption on commercial swine farms, she explains. Many variables throughout the water system can affect what reaches the pig, so the pork industry needs to shift to a mindset of ‘trust, but verify’ when it comes to water-administered products. The tool is freely accessible at PigmentRx.com.
“This is something you can do in the barn tomorrow,” Jones says. “You can’t troubleshoot what you don’t see.”
Jones’ innovation and knowledge helped her win the coveted Morrison Swine Innovator Prize that honors veterinary and graduate students who present practical, peer-reviewed innovations directly applicable to swine production. 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.
