Injecting, what’s the theory?
Most vaccinations in piglets are administered intramuscularly in the neck, behind the ear.
Give all the piglets the same opportunity:
Secure colostrum-intake for all
Combine different interventions
Iron supplementation from day 3 or later
Preventative pain treatment = not only for male piglets
Apply pain-relieving/ anti-inflammatory medication with a broad spectrum of activity for docked tails or arthritis
Sucking pigs have an irrepressible desire to live. However, painful events may have a negative impact on the further development of pigs by:
Lowering milk-intake
Restricting self-preservation instinct (reflex to flee)
Early and excessive iron supplementation can negatively influence health
Piglets are born with minimal iron-reserves (40 mg). This low iron concentration is a natural defence mechanism directed at combatting bacterial infections during and after birth.
Sow milk provides piglets with about 1 mg Iron/day. With a daily need of about 7 mg there is only sufficient iron for about 4 to 5 days.
The highest level of reproductive performance will be found on farms where feed intake is adjusted to the need of each individual sow. For this reason it is necessary to have a farm-specific feeding regime where the body condition of each individual sow pre-farrowing is documented and feeding adjusted accordingly on a sow by sow basis.
Precision is the future of all food production including pork and prevention is the foundation of precision. In this series of articles, Dr. DiPietre will look at different aspects related with pig production and precision agriculture and what economic impact could they have in our farms.
US - For the second year, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. (BIVI), has awarded $50,000 in Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea (PED) research grants.
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