The Swine Health Blackbelt Podcast

In every facet of pig production, the importance of comprehensive health management cannot be emphasized enough. The industry is consistently exploring effective approaches to monitor, address, and mitigate health issues in swine. Magdiel Lopez, a key figure in this arena, has devoted his career to driving this mission forward. Within the realm of animal welfare, a critical focal point is the mana...

Group housing in swine production promotes social interactions but can lead to stress due to competition for resources and aggressive behavior. Effective management, including proper space and enrichment, alleviates stress and enhances animal welfare. To shed light on this matter, I talked to Dr. Jennifer Brown about her research on swine welfare, especially in group housing, and strategies to mit...

During the heart of the summer season, how can sow farms maintain optimal reproductive efficiency? In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Lauren Glowzenski about managing non-productive days, with a specific emphasis on the crucial 'weaning-to-service' interval. Gain insights into how sow farms can effectively handle non-productive days, with a specific focus on the period from post-weaning unt...

Understanding the complex world of swine health management is critical for maintaining farm productivity and reducing losses associated with disease outbreaks. In the second and final part of this two-episode sequence with Dr. Chris Rademacer, we delve into one initiative that assists with this matter: the PRRS Outbreak Management Program (POMP). Led by expert veterinarians, such as Dr. Rademacher...

Dr. Chris Rademacher currently fills the role of Clinical Professor at the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Interim Director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center. In this first part of a two-episode series, we go into his background and experiences in the industry. Also, we discuss the history of the ISU McKean Swine Disease Conference and its recent changes, as this year's...

While Sapovirus is not a new topic in conversations on livestock health, signs point towards increased outbreaks. The virus is becoming a growing concern within the swine farming industry because of the significant setbacks in piglet growth and disruptions to standard care practices it causes. So in this episode, Dr. Adam Mueller discusses Sapovirus, its impacts on piglets in both the farrowing an...

Biosecurity is of utmost importance on sow farms, as it plays a critical role in protecting the health and ensuring the productivity of the animals. At the core of the biosecurity practices of every farm is the implementation of strict protocols to control and monitor the movement of people, animals, and equipment. In this episode, Sara Pardall, B.Sc., discusses the challenges and critical points...

Sow farms collect large amounts of data every day, but that is not enough: real-time surveillance of such production data still has significant gaps. Thus, it is essential to integrate the data collected on the farm with the tools available to help swine production systems identify real-time productivity deviations in order to have accuracy in the detection of even the smallest of changes. That wa...

Swine veterinarians benefit greatly from telemedicine because it enables them to respond promptly to health concerns, offer expert advice, and assist farmers in making informed decisions regarding the health of their animals. In the second part of this two-episode series, Dr. Meredith Petersen continues exploring the challenges of telemedicine in the swine veterinary field, now approaching potenti...

The use of telemedicine in swine veterinary practice has revolutionized the way veterinarians interact with clients. It allows remote consultations, diagnoses, and treatment recommendations, thus reducing geographical barriers and ensuring timely and efficient herd care. In the first part of this episode, Dr. Meredith Petersen discusses the subject, mentioning the challenges in its adoption: relia...

Since the PRRS virus is still a challenging disease, researchers, scientists, extensionists, and the entire sector are continuously looking for efficient strategies to better manage it. An attractive option is using antibiotics: indeed, PRRS is a virus and antibiotics target bacteria, but considering that PRRS depresses the immune system, using antibiotics can be a way of reducing the clinical sig...

Swine mortality is a significant issue for the industry, as the death of an individual animal deeply affects farmers and the whole swine production. So in order to combat sow mortality and make production more profitable and sustainable, we must understand its causes. In this episode, Dr. Mariana Kikuti discusses a study conducted in the US Midwest on sow mortality in pig production systems, aimed...

The worldwide swine industry is heavily affected by Mycoplasma, a disease that reduces growth rates, increases medication costs, and decreases productivity. Therefore, various programs have been developed to combat its adverse effects, including better management practices, strict biosecurity measures, and vaccination programs, thus improving the welfare of pigs and increasing the profitability of...

While the concept of "animal welfare" can be understood in different ways, an alternative approach known as behavioral management has been gaining attention. The animal industry encounters difficulties in defining welfare and quantifying it, along with effectively handling animal behavior to enhance it. In this episode, Dr. John McGlone discusses swine behavioral management as well as the...

Efficient diagnostic surveillance and testing for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) in weaned pigs is crucial to good swine management, particularly considering their high susceptibility and frequent exposure to the disease. To achieve accurate sample size estimation and proper interpretation of laboratory results, one must understand the effectiveness and limitations of differe...

The US Swine Health Improvement Program (US SHIP) is a collaborative effort among the industry, animal health state officials, and federal authorities with the goal of establishing traceability, biosecurity, and surveillance standards for the pork industry. The aim is to create a certification program that meets or exceeds these standards and can be recognized by US states and trading partners (th...

From developing a recruiting pipeline for vets and other related positions to answering specific questions within various departments as well as exposing students to the exciting world of the pig industry, Dr. Claire LeFevre gives us in this episode an insider's view into valuable internship programs. In our conversation, we discuss recruitment, routine, and other aspects of such internship pr...

Transporting pigs between locations may expose them to various stressors, such as food and water deprivation, physical control, and combination with unfamiliar pigs. Such stressors can disrupt the natural balance of the animals, resulting in non-ambulatory or injured pigs – and even death. In this episode, Dr. Arlene Garcia discusses some research she's been working on that investigates the ef...

Veterinary telemedicine uses video calls, texts, pictures, and documents to remotely monitor and treat animals – through a screen, a veterinarian can provide advice and care instead of having to be physically present at a clinic or visit a farm. This way of working is becoming more common, especially for vets who work with farm animals. A telemedicine session can help keep things organized, record...

You may have your own definition of biosecurity and your own perception of the practices and processes that make it happen, but does everyone on a farm think alike? By understanding people’s different perceptions, we can map the challenges and opportunities to improve biosecurity on our farms. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Cristopher Gambino about his survey on biosecurity perceptions and pract...

In the first part of this episode, we saw that although PCV2 may not be that severe anymore, especially considering the role of vaccination, we still have some cases of systemic diseases caused by PCV in pigs – even in well-vaccinated ones. That happens because we're well equipped to run diagnostics, but vaccination timing and dosing depends on different management programs applied on the farm...

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) was a severe disease, but since vaccines were introduced in 2006 and 2007, it has almost disappeared. However, in the past few years, there have been some cases of systemic disease caused by PCV in well-vaccinated pigs. So the question is: nowadays, do we have reasons to be concerned about PCV2? In the first part of this episo...

Every year, PRRS causes many reproductive issues and death losses to the swine industry across the globe. To make matters worse, recent years have seen the emergence of a new PRRSV strain: the 1-4-4 lineage 1C, whose main characteristic is being highly virulent – in other words, it causes higher rates of mortality than what we typically see with PRRS. In this episode, Kyle Nisley discusses a proje...

You know what they say: not everything is as it seems... That's especially true for diagnosing respiratory diseases in swine: interpretation can be quite a challenge. That is because a respiratory infection may look like a specific disease, but this does not mean we are going to get that diagnosis once we do a PCR. For example, producers and veterinarians are used to seeing post-weaning respir...

You have already heard about prebiotics and probiotics, but do you know what postbiotics are? Postbiotics are a relatively new type of feed additive, characterized by inanimate microorganisms/components which are prepared to confer health benefits to their hosts. So what does it do to pigs to improve their health status and, consequently, their performance? In this episode, Dr. Erik Eckhardt discu...