The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Beef Checkoff have partnered with Merck Animal Health to launch new online retail-training program for Better Beef Sales. The need for more training of meat-counter employees became evident after Merck Animal Health conducted a series of consumer panels that revealed consumers identify the staff behind the counter as experts. “The consumer that goes …
The Novus Triple S Bottom Line
At the International Poultry Expo, Novus International announced a new enzyme “candidate,” the first from their collaboration with Verenium. I spoke with Gary Hayen, Global Business Director for the fermentation products division. Gary says that by bringing these two companies together they will bring a strength to the industry to bring solutions to their customers. He says that because of …
PRRS Seminar Wrapup
The Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica staff veterinarian with a focus on PRRS, the swine disease that so many are trying to eliminate, is Dr. Reid Philips. Reid was on hand for this year’s PRRS ARC&E Seminar. I asked Reid to provide a wrapup viewpoint about how this year’s seminar went. He says this year’s program came together really well. The seminar …
PRRS Surveillance
Dr. Jim Branstad, Keota Veterinary Clinic, spoke about PRRS Surveillance in area regional control projects during the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS Seminar. He should know all about pig surveillance since as he says, “I spend about 90 percent of my time with pigs.” The message he had included the need to talk individually with producers in the project area. That one …
Small PRRS Projects Seeing Success
Dr. Jim Lowe is an independent veterinarian and one of the attendees at the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS ARC&E Seminar. He’s the guy on the Mac. I asked him why he attends this seminar. Jim says that he spends a lot of time dealing with PRRS and this program allows him time to visit with colleagues and share information. He’s involved …
Financial Impact Of Eliminating PRRS
There is a serious financial impact from the PRRS disease in pigs and at the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS Seminar we learned how much. Dr. Derold Holtkamp, Iowa State University, made a presentation titled, “Bio-economics: The Impact of PRRS & PRRS Control. He had recently completed a Pork Board cost of PRRS study and says they were able to use that …
South-East Iowa PRRS Project Update
Providing a report on the progress of the South-East Iowa PRRS ARC&E Project during the BIVI PRRS Seminar was Dr. Tim Loula, Swine Vet Center. He says these projects to try to eliminate Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome are similar to ones conducted some time ago for Pseudorabies. He says the Iowa program was started in a very pig dense …
Sharing PRRS and PRRS Control Information
This is my favorite Dr. Laura. She’s Dr. Laura Batista, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica and she was our moderator at the PRRS ARC&E Seminar in Chicago last week. I had to wait until today to get these posts done (more coming) since I had to re-voice my part of my interviews due to losing my voice end of last week. It’s …
North-Central Illinois PRRS Project Update
During the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS ARC&E Seminar participants heard reports from some of those area regional control & elimination projects. One of those was the North-Central Illinois Project. Our speaker was Dr. Noel Garbes, Bethany Animal Hospital Swine Services. Noel says the PRRS (porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome) project has been going on for about two years and early on …
Update on BIVI 3FLEX
It has been on the market for less than a year, but Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica’s 3FLEX™ swine vaccine is already gained wide acceptance among producers. At the BIVI Swine Health Seminar in North Carolina last week, Dr. Greg Cline gave an update on the acceptance of the 3-way vaccine to combat Porcine Circovirus, Mycoplasma Hyopneumoniae AND PRRS. “The acceptance and …