Production costs continue to climb across the swine industry, and the health costs associated with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome only make it worse. PRRS is estimated to cost the industry $1.8 million per day.

Host Sarah Muirhead talks with Dr. Katie Coleman from Iowa Select Farms to discuss how Iowa Select reduced PRRS incidence by more than 90% in affected barns, without building new barns in a swine-dense area. 

They discuss: 

• Costs of PRRS to a system
• A specific type of filtration addition that didn’t require a new barn build
• Timeline necessary for modifications and culture shift
• How improved herd health benefits employees
• Tools they used and lessons learned

This podcast is one of a four-part series on controlling costs with herd health, which is brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Check out the other three episodes for discussions on Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, Lawsonia and porcine sapovirus. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio of options to support your protocols.

There are plenty of diseases that can affect a production system, but what happens when the standard culprits don’t show up on a diagnostics test? 

Host Sarah Muirhead sits down with Dr. Tom Petznick of ArkCare to discuss lessons learned in uncovering and controlling porcine sapovirus.

They discuss: 

• Realizing he was dealing with a new challenge
• Next generation gene sequencing
• Treatments for a little known virus
• The costs of sapovirus to a system
• Lessons learned from a sneaky virus

Dr. Petznick, veterinarian at ArkCare, has been practicing swine veterinary medicine for 25 years and is this year’s Allen D. Leman Science in Practice Award winner. His expertise in managing purebred sows has made him an in-demand consulting swine veterinarian.

This podcast is one of a four-part series on controlling costs with herd health brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Check out the other three episodes for discussions on PRRS, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae and Lawsonia. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio options to support your protocols. 

“There is no such thing as normal diarrhea.” This comes from someone who has dedicated nearly 40 years to controlling and establishing immunity to ileitis, a leading cause of diarrhea in pigs. 

Host Sarah Muirhead speaks with Dr. Nate Winkelman from Swine Services Unlimited about practical strategies and lessons learned for controlling Lawsonia.

They discuss: 

• Costs of Lawsonia  to a system
• Why ileitis is so endemic in the swine industry
• Types of diagnosis and treatments
• The future of ileitis control

This podcast is one of a four-part series on controlling costs through herd health, which is brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Check out the other three episodes for discussions on PPRS, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae and porcine sapovirus. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio of options to support your protocols. 

In an industry where health challenges can determine the difference between profitability and loss, why not eliminate a challenge when you can? 

Host Sarah Muirhead sits down with Dr. Amy Maschhoff from The Maschhoffs LLC System to discuss practical strategies, lessons and benefits seen from eliminating M. Hyo, a common cause of coinfections.

They discuss: 

• Costs of mycoplasma to a system
• Lessons learned from eliminating the disease
• Benefits to the production system as a whole
• Backup plans if the original elimination plan doesn’t work
• Future opportunities

Dr. Amy Maschhoff is the director of health and animal care for The Maschhoffs, LLC. She earned her veterinary degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and began her career as herd veterinarian for The Maschhoffs. Now she serves in a more central role for the Maschhoff system.

This podcast is one of a four-part series on controlling costs with herd health brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Check out the other three episodes for discussions on PRRS, Lawsonia and porcine sapovirus. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio of options to support your protocols.

Welcome to this episode of Feedstuffs Swine Healthline, brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health and focused on writing and executing effective swine health protocols.

One aspect of the job as a swine veterinarian is helping your customers or your teams develop and write swine health protocols. 

No matter how good the protocol, it won’t work to protect pigs if the steps aren’t being executed in the barn, at the truck wash or on the road between farms. 

Are you confident your protocols are being accurately executed? How do you know? 

Today’s guest spends much of his time helping pork production systems answer those questions. Dr. Jerome Geiger is a health assurance veterinarian with Pig Improvement Company. Dr. Geiger has seen plenty of cases in which biosecurity protocols were executed differently than they were written. 

He will explain four strategies you can use to ensure your protocols work as well in real life as they do on paper. And, he will share what he thinks is the most important piece of successful swine health protocols.

This is the last in a four-part podcast series about Swine Respiratory Disease Complex brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio options to support your swine health protocols. 

Download the other podcasts in the series to learn about the latest research in PRRSV cases, the challenges posed by endemic bacterial agents in swine facilities and advice when considering disease elimination from a system or pig flow.

Welcome to this episode of Feedstuffs Swine Healthline, brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health and focused on transitioning a sow herd or pig flow to high-health status.

You’ve probably heard the saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Today’s guest says that’s how it can feel when dealing with a chronic disease challenge in pork production. 

Dr. Jeremy Pittman is a veterinarian with Smithfield Hog Production who has helped multiple production sites work through transitions to high-health status. Today, Dr. Pittman will talk about what he learned while planning and executing a disease-elimination program. He will also recommend questions veterinarians can ask their customers or teams to decide whether the transition to high-health status could be profitable.

This is the third in a four-part podcast series about Swine Respiratory Disease Complex brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio options to support your swine health protocols. 

Next week on Swine Healthline, we will talk about a common challenge in pork production: When health protocols don’t work in real life as well as they do on paper. It happens more often than anyone wants to admit, says Dr. Jer Geiger, health assurance veterinarian with PIC. How can you be sure your protocols are executed successfully in the barn or the feed mill? Join us next week to find out.

Welcome to this episode of Feedstuffs Swine Healthline, brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health and focused on endemic bacterial agents. 

Increasingly, the swine industry's attention is focused on epidemic agents, such as PRRS and PED, or the constant threat of foreign animal diseases, such as African Swine Fever. In this episode, we switch gears and talking about an ever-present challenge posed by endemic bacterial agents, such as Streptococcus suis and Glaesserella parasuis – bacterial agents that jeopardize herd health, compromise animal well-being and drag down performance potential. 

Our guest is Dr. Maria Jose Clavijo, a research assistant professor at Iowa State University and a health assurance veterinarian with The Pig Improvement Company (PIC). Dr. Clavijo will talk about trends that show an increase in the diagnosis and detection of certain bacterial pathogens. She’ll also explain how whole genome sequencing helps identify different pathogen strains, opening the door to more effective disease control programs. 

This is the second in a four-part podcast series about Swine Respiratory Disease Complex brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio options to support your protocols.

Join us next week on Swine Healthline to hear from Dr. Jeremy Pittman, a veterinarian with Smithfield Pork. He will talk about the complex factors of successful disease elimination strategies and how you as a veterinarian can ask the right questions to help your customers meet their pork production goals.

Welcome to this episode of Feedstuffs Swine Healthline, brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health and focused on what the latest veterinary diagnostic data tells us about the state of PRRS in the U.S.

Our guest is Dr. Daniel Linhares, associate professor and director of graduate education at Iowa State University. Dr. Linhares provides the latest data and discusses what it says about the current state of Porcine Respiratory and Reproductive Syndrome virus across the U.S. swine herd. 

Dr. Linhares’ research focuses on swine population health, including strategies to prevent, detect or manage infectious diseases in field conditions. Today, he will talk about the latest PRRS data compiled from primary veterinary diagnostic laboratories across the U.S. and insights on how you can use the data in your practice or system. 

Find more information about today’s topic as well as disease-monitoring information and other tools at field.epi.org.

This is the first in a four-part podcast series about Swine Respiratory Disease Complex brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health. Call your Pharmgate representative or visit pharmgate.com to learn about their broad portfolio options to support your protocols.

Join us next week on Swine Healthline to hear from Dr. Maria Clavijo, research assistant professor at Iowa State University and health assurance veterinarian at Pig Improvement Company. She will share her latest research regarding endemic bacteria in pork production and how to manage the costly impacts.