insect control

NPIC

The National Pork Industry Conference was recently held at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells. The meeting dates were July 11th through July 14th. This year the conference celebrated its 25th year. The organizers of this conference announced record attendance for 2021. It is a good venue for meetings and is very family friendly. The dates for the 2022 conference are July 10th – 13th.

Numerous SVC clients and SVC Veterinarians were in attendance. The opening reception was held on Sunday evening followed by meetings all day Monday plus Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.

There was naturally a lot of hallway talk with the main topic being the rapid spread of 1-4-4 PRRS virus throughout the upper Midwest. There have been an unseasonable number of farms (sow, nursery, finishing, and W-F) continuing to break recently. SVC Veterinarians have multiple research projects in the works to help try to sort out where this is coming from. Stay tuned for updates.

SVC Presentation

During the Monday after-noon session, SVC’s Dr. Chris Sievers and Dr. Ryan Strobel presented their “Top 10 Ways to Deal with PRRS Positive Pigs in the Nursery”

Keep pigs warm and comfortable
Utilize extra labor and support growers
Raising acute positive pigs vs euthanizing and purchasing
Keep feed and water fresh
Utilize antibiotics strategically
Pull extra diagnostics and use autogenous vaccine isolates
Wean an older pig
Change pig flow
PRRSv vaccines
Anti inflammatory treatments

NPIC
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, made a guest video appearance to announce that the Pandemic Livestock Indemnity Act funds (>$300 million) are going to be re-leased in July. Additional funds are also being made available to target small producers that were harmed by the 2020 pandemic market disruptions.

China update

Another very interesting topic was presented by Jeffen Chen from Huanshan Group in China. He gave an update on the state of the Chinese pork industry.

Their industry has been rapidly rebuilding after being devastated by the African Swine Fever (ASF) virus. The trend is less small and backyard pro-duction and more large, modern farms.

There are now more than 40 million sows in China. To put this in perspective the U. S. sow inventory from the USDA June report was 6.23 million sows.
Due to this expansion, the extremely high market prices that were seen for approximately 2 years have now dropped to the point that some producers are losing money. Despite this, his opinion was that China will still continue to import pork from the U.S. because of our lower cost of production.
Some new farms continue to be farrow to finish but many are moving to multi-site production, taking a page from the U.S. industry.
One new project will sell 2.1 million pigs annually and has a feed mill and packing plant on site.
Some buildings are being built with multiple levels of pigs (“Highrise barns”) due to the lack of space in the country. Costs for this are estimated to be 30% more than traditional construction.
Due to the extremely high hog density and disease pressure they are also implementing filtration systems in many new farms plus retrofitting some old farms with filters. In addition to PRRS, China also has many diseases that are not pre-sent in the U.S. including ASF, Hog Cholera, Foot and Mouth Disease, Pseudorabies virus (PRV) among others.

Outside the Barn:
Optimate® CS, Tempo SC

Inside the Barn:
Microcare 3% CS, ULD BP-100, Stryker™ Insecticide

While much needed rainfall provided relief, it may cause the headache associated with an uptick of mosquitoes and insects. Along with the products that can be applied either on the pig or to the premise, there are also environmental factors that need to be tended to when insects are a problem. The following are all important components of insect control:

Routine lawn mowing
Eliminating standing water on the site
Removing water from curtains on a regular basis
Leaving the lights off in the barn at night

Click here to view our July 2015 Newsletter with product application rates.

SVC Biosecurity Updates

You may have noticed the mess behind SVC this spring as we have been building an enclosed lift for unloading trucks. Once this is completed there will also be biosecure points for farms to pick up orders, both during and after business hours.

We will also be installing UV/Ozone equipment for disinfecting shoes. These will be installed at the key access points to enter SVC as part of our biosecurity project. Stay tuned for more information as these projects are completed this summer.

SVC Office Hours: Monday through Friday 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM

No portion of this newsletter may be used/copied without written consent of Swine Vet Center

Insect control

Although recent weather has been hot and at times dry, periods of wet, cooler weather provides a perfect environment for flies and mosquitos to live and breed around barns. An increase in mosquito populations bring with it an increased frequency of bites and the risk of carcass trim that can be costly. Flies are a nuisance and have the potential of spreading diseases. Several options are available for insect control in and around our swine barns. Before considering insecticides, work on managing the environmental factors that allow insect breeding.

Keep grass around barns mowed short
Eliminate standing water around the site
Run curtains up routinely (weekly) to eliminate pooled water
Shut-off night lights in the barn
Consider agitating pit if a considerable crust exists
Have adequate material to cover carcasses in compost bays
Clean-up feed spills outside and inside the barn

Insecticides are also an important part of a fly and mosquito control program. Several options are available. Consider the following:

House flies and fruit flies

Insect growth regulators (IGR) disrupt the molting process, which is essential for fly life. IGR’s are used to treat the pit, where the fly life cycle is most often taking place.

Neporex – for pit application

Dry scatter granules and wash into pit: 1 pound per 200 sq. ft.
Pouring into pit: 1 pound/gallon of water per 200 sq. ft

Clarifly – for in-feed application

Follow label directions for complete swine diet

Outside barn application

Optimate^® CS as a residual spray on surfaces where adult flies rest.

Mixing Rate: 1 oz. of Optimate® CS/gallon water.
One gallon will spray approximately 1000 square feet. Apply as a residual spray using a backpack sprayer. Make sure that the spray does not drift into the building when animals are present inside.

Tempo SC to spray the perimeter of the building.

Mixing Rate: 16 ml of Tempo SC/gallon water
Apply around the perimeter of the building. One gallon will spray approx. 1000 square feet.

Inside barn application

Microcare 3% CS—Apply to pigs and on barn surfaces as a light mist.

Mixing Rate: 4 oz. Microcare/gallon water
Apply ULD BP-100 to pigs and on barn surfaces.
Mixing Rate: Undiluted; apply at a rate of 1 oz./1,000 cubic feet.

Mosquitoes

Outside barn application

Tempo SC— spray outside the barn a couple weeks prior to topping if mosquitoes are an issue. Sites may need to be sprayed weekly until the site is closed out.

Mixing Rate: 16 ml Tempo/gallon of water
Apply around the perimeter of the building. One gallon will spray approximately 1000 sq. ft.

Inside barn application

Microcare 3% CS— Apply to pigs and on barn surfaces as a light mist.

Mixing Rate: 4 oz. Microcare/gallon water

Stryker™ Insecticide Concentrate for use on barn surfaces as a light mist

Mixing Rate: Mix 2 fluid ounces Stryker™ Insecticide Concentrate/gallon water

Supply Decontamination

Supply entry into a farm has always presented a biosecurity risk. Over time, multiple methods to attempt full disinfection of these supplies have been used. Fogging supplies with a disinfectant is a common practice used by farms to decontaminate supplies¼ although it may not be as effective as we all perceive it to be. Recent work presented in the student session at the 2020 AASV meeting, reviewed the fogging of supplies and showed that this practice does not apply full coverage of disinfectant on the surfaces of supplies.

In brief, three fogging procedures were compared to hand-spraying supply surfaces

1. 1. 1. A single Hurricane fogger
    2. A single Fogmaster fogger
    3. Two Hurricane foggers running simultaneously

A decontamination room was used that included 3-tier shelving for box placement
Foggers in the room were set up to create a disinfection cloud within the room and run for a 10-minute cycle
Colored dye was applied with the fogger and a percentage of surface coverage was measured with an imaging software program.

The manual application through a hand-sprayer was able to achieve a 95% coverage of all surfaces compared to the two Hurricane fogger method (57%) and the single Hurricane fogger and single Fogmaster fogger (40% and 24% respectively).

This study shows that creating a disinfectant fog within a decontamination room does a poor job in completely covering all surfaces of supplies with disinfectant. Considerations to increase the success of supply disinfection should include hand-application of disinfectant or updating supply entry procedures that allow supplies to be exposed to heating and a holding time before entered into the farm.

Leuck K, et al. Evaluation of location and fogger type on disinfectant surface area coverage of supplies entering a commercial sow farm. Student Research Presentations, 51 Am Assoc Swine Vet Annual Meeting. 2020;58.

Animal Health Product Updates

Manufacturing issues for many swine health products over the year has led to several backorders. An update on products that have recently become available again includes:

Tylan 200 is now available
Injectable Oxytetracycline is now available
Short-acting penicillin is now available

Work with your Swine Vet Center veterinarian to review treatment protocols and discuss where these antibiotics fit into your herd health management.

SVC Office Hours: Monday through Friday 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM

No portion of this newsletter may be used/copied without written consent of Swine Vet Center