Preparation for Swine Diseases is at Your Fingertips

Pig farmers can prepare for animal diseases that are on the move through many methods. This preparation should protect your pigs, your feed, and your business. What does preparation look like?

1. First and foremost, get a biosecurity plan in place. Resources for evaluating biosecurity on your farm, building a plan, and critiquing your plan are available through numerous resources. Your local resources are available through Penn State Extension - You can ask your local extension office for a hard copy of preparation materials (supplies limited), or you can go directly to Secure Pork Supply (SPS) website and download the variety of guides and templates available to build your secure pork supply plan. If you need more assistance in building your plan, Penn State Extension has videos that will walk you through the process.
2. Reviewing your feed sources, visitor policies, and mortality management plans will go a long way to ensuring you are prepared to deal with an outbreak of disease, should that happen. In particular, knowing your feed sources and keeping uncooked meat away from pigs is paramount to preventing the spread of ASF and other high consequence animal diseases. To ensure feed safety, have a conversation with your feed supplier, and keenly follow garbage feeding regulations. As a reminder, in PA you must be licensed to legally feed garbage to your pigs. Anyone feeding garbage or plate waste to backyard pigs should also be aware of the risks. You can find more information on garbage feeding through Penn State Extension or through the PA Department of Agriculture.
3. Finally, know the health status of your animals. Working with your herd veterinarian and creating a routine diagnostic testing plan will help you stay on top of your current herd health status, and help you identify new problems quickly. While diagnostic testing can be expensive, working with a veterinarian to create a plan that makes the most sense for your farm is the best solution to gain the advantages of routine testing, and keep that cost to a minimum.

This is just a brief overview of animal health resources that are available to pig farmers. To Stay up to date with global emerging diseases of importance to swine, follow updates from the World Organization for Animal Health. Of course, on a local level, don't hesitate to reach out with questions to your farm veterinarian, Penn State Extension, or your regional Bureau of Animal Health veterinarian. Right now, the resources pig farmers need are right where you need them, and with devastating diseases like ASF knocking at our doorstep, the time to prepare is now. Don't wait.  

Abbreviated and updated from previously published article in Lancaster Farming on August 4, 2021