HEAL ▶▶▶TH
Improving biosecurity and pig flow management
BY POUL HENNING RATHKJEN, BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM ANIMAL HEALTH H
igh level biosecurity is a must, not only for farms located in pig-dense areas with high infection pressure, but for all farms because they constantly receive, and deliver biological material (i.e. ani-
mals and feed). A lot of research projects have been dedicat- ed to demonstrate how viruses, for example PRRS virus, are shed from pigs, and transmitted between farms. This has led to a common understanding of the critical importance of good external biosecurity, to avoid introduction of new viruses, with a high focus on clean transports, separate and clean load out areas, downtime for visitors etc. When it comes to internal biosecurity, and especially man- agement and pig flow, the implementation of preventive measures is also necessary. As it is difficult to change the lo- cation of a farm, internal biosecurity, pig flow and manage- ment become even more crucial, in order to prevent internal transmission of pathogens like PRRS. Several abstracts at two recent congresses (ESPHM in Barcelo- na, Spain and IPVS in Chongqing, China) have revealed that basically the same high risk areas are facing pig producers all over the globe.
A new app to help ‘Combat’ (an acronym for ‘Comprehensive Online Manage- ment and Biosecurity Assessment Tool’) is a new app devel- oped by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica. Its intention is to help farmers and veterinarians to score and improve levels of biosecurity, pig flow and management procedures and benchmarking against other farms, as well as guiding farm- ers, veterinarians and other advisors to address high risk pro- cedures and prioritise improvements. An example of the app can be seen in Figure 1. The relative risk is based on 55 questions divided in four categories: • Internal risks; • External risks; • Location risk; and • Management and pig flow. Feedback is given on each category and categorised as very high, high, medium and low risk, to facilitate discussion of behaviours and prioritise fields of importance. This article
The importance of biosecurity does not need any further introduction. Awareness of pathogens and how they can get into farms greatly enhances proper management. Tools and apps can certainly help increase that awareness on-farm.
contains some of the key findings from over 1,000 completed surveys related to the tool worldwide.
Disease status of neighbouring farms Pig production tends to cluster in certain areas or regions. This increases the risk of area spread of diseases. Therefore, the knowledge of the disease status of neighbouring farms located in the same area becomes crucial in order to take necessary precautions. Surprisingly, the surveys revealed that more than 70% of the questionnaires found that the status of nearest neighbouring farm is either PRRS unstable or unknown (Figure 2).
Figure 1 - ‘COMBAT’ visualisation, a four-dimension circle chart, indicating the internal risks (X-axis), external risks (Y-axis), risks related to location (circle colour) and the quality of management and pig flow (size of circle).
0 120 100 80 60 3 40 20 0 0204060 80 Against all data in system 100 120
1 4 6
5 2 External risk
Internal risk Y - Axis
X - Axis X/Y Average ▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 34, No. 6, 2018 27 100
Location Colour
Management Size
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