Understanding how early in the production chain a disease actually starts will give veterinarians a better chance at stopping it before it becomes a problem.
“Twenty percent of those pigs are coughing before our brain will let us hear that,” Dr. Jim Lowe, a private livestock veterinary consultant in Illinois, told attendees of the annual Boehringer Ingelheim (BIVI) Swine Health Seminar for swine vets in San Diego. He added that if you work the math of how long it takes a pig to go from infection to cough, you’re looking at 60 days to possibly between 120-150 days. “So if we’re hearing a cough in 15-, 16-, 17- weeks old pigs, those infections likely started back in the farrowing house.” He suggested more patient monitoring of gilts earlier in the process.
Lowe also talked about how swine vets can remain relevant to increasingly larger corporate operations, cautioning those vets are on the verge of becoming not very important, and they can’t just run around trying to cure the problem of the moment. He said vets need to use as sophisticated technology as the big producers are using, lest they become opinion-givers instead of fact-givers. Lowe also touched on the importance of husbandry and taking a holistic approach to managing a swine herd. Using the cattle feedlot business as an analogy, he said how good the caregiver is in the overall production chain makes a 10-fold difference. “The skill of our caregivers is really important, and that’s a real opportunity for us as veterinarians.”
Listen to Cindy’s interview with Dr. Lowe here: Interview with Dr. Jim Lowe