Piggy Health Matters
Uploaded April 2007

I wonder how many of us have gone out to feed our pigs only to be faced with the sight of a dead piglet, weaner, finisher or sow. Confident in the knowledge that the animal was perfectly alright when we last fed, we put it down to one of'those things' and move on.

Whilst there can be any number of reasons why the pig suddenly keeled over, one reason we should never overlook is stress.

Some breeds of pigs are notoriously susceptible to having a nasty little gene, which is commonly referred to as 'the stress gene'. Pietrain's are the most famous for this, but the gene may be in any of the traditional pig breeds as well. For those breeder who have ever exported, Japanese importers in particular, usually require a negative stress gene test before considering any purchase.

Unless every pig is DNA tested for the gene, it is likely you will never know if you have an issue in the herd. For those who are interested in this further, details will be provided in the next newsletter.
However, to help reduce the factors that put a pig in a stress situation in the first place it is worth remembering some of the more common factors that will stress any pig, whether it has a doggy gene or not.

• Movement of the pigs even between pens or fields
• The extent to which the pigs are handled during movement
• Any changed environment with different bacteria or air flow
• Worming
• Notching/tagging
• Washing
• Vaccination
• Diet changes
• Mixing litters

Whilst most stress can be coped with quite well and have no long term ill effects, it can give rise to short term health problems, particularly diarrhoea. In the extreme death may result.

Good husbandry is always the key and when planning things like weaning, it is always preferable to 'spread the stress'. There is a view that if you are going to have a bad day it might as well be a very bad day but worming, notching/tagging or vaccinations are always best done at an earlier date that the day you wean. When weaning take mom away from piglets rather than the other way around and always introduce new food gradually, mixing the old food in, so the change is over time.

In the traditional world, we manage our pigs in a lesser stress environment generally, anyway but it is always worth continually improving our management to keep our lovely breed stress free.
As usual there are a couple of NADIS articles, which whilst aimed at more commercial operations, clearly have relevance for our herds.

If there are any specific health matters people would like to know about then please let me know and I will do my best to research information for you.

Chris Coe
christine.coe@hsbc.com
07836 644641