Page 12 - Australian Pork Newspaper

As much as necessary, as little as possible
■ Deaths down by 60 percent, antimicrobial use down by 30 percent on a Queensland farm
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HERE’S a good example of ways to reduce mor- tality rate.
This case study is drawn from a contract grower site producing 500 pigs on a three-week cycle.
This Queensland herd is under the veterinary con- trol of Dr Andrew Morris who provided the data.
The farm reduced their overall antibiotic usage while improving overall herd mortality rates by us- ing targeted vaccinations and the addition of probi- otics to the diet.
Clearly the health re- sponses are the result of a tailor-made solution.
“We decided on this ap- proach because pig flow changes were not possible, so we focused on increas- ing the background health
of individual pigs through novel (off-label) vaccine use and reducing the mi- crobial load in water,” Dr Morris said.
The farm is a medium- sized contract grow site in southern Queensland.
Pigs come in at seven to eight weeks of age and are sold for slaughter at 20-22 weeks of age, weighing 110kg.
The water source is sur- face water.
The site is well venti- lated.
Staff are diligent and fo- cus on maintaining open blinds wherever possible.
There’s nothing special about the health challeng- es here.
The herd has a conven- tional health status.
Strep suis meningitis,
mycoplasma pneumonia, brachyspira and pasteur- ella pneumonia are the dominant diseases.
Before 15 weeks of age, strep suis causes the most deaths.
After 15 weeks of age, pasteurella is the offend- ing pathogen.
The mortality rate av- erages 16 per week (3.2 percent) but sometimes spikes as high as 40 pigs (8 percent) per week dur- ing extreme disease epi- sodes.
This farm keeps track of its antimicrobial use.
It was relatively high at 2.6g/kg of liveweight pro- duced.
The plan
Pig flow changes would have made the biggest difference but that just wasn’t going to be possi- ble considering the design and output style of the operation.
“Instead we focused on increasing the back- ground health of the pigs so disease would have less chance to flourish or es- tablish easily,” Dr Morris said.
Bacillus subtilis (Alteri- on), a probiotic, was add- ed in all feeds through- out the system from birth to slaughter and breeder herds to stabilise the herd’s microbiome – the normal necessary but ‘friendly’ population of bugs carried by pigs.
The probiotic is inte- grated into the vitamin and mineral premix to
reduce cost.
Fysal MP (a feed acid)
was included into feeds at 1.5kg per tonne from 16 weeks of age and above.
This inclusion was based on trial data from the Pork CRC.
Also, at 16 weeks, pig- lets were vaccinated with a live pasteurella multo- cida vaccine (under a vet script) at 0.7ml per pig.
Water is treated with Selko PH (an acidifier) for pigs over 17 weeks of age.
This improves the mi- crobial balance in the gastrointestinal tract and helps to further reduce and replace antibiotic use. The result
“The mortalities have dropped significantly and now average six (1.2 per- cent) rather than 16 per week,” Dr Morris said.
That’s an estimated im- provement in gross rev- enue of about $3000 per week.
Carcass quality has also improved, an unexpected bonus.
Current antibiotic usage has dropped by 32 per- cent.
“Hence, there has been significant improvement in both mortality rate and carcass quality with cor- responding decreases in antibiotic usage,” Dr Mor- ris said.
“And we can see fur- ther opportunities to re- duce treatment costs with modifications to plumb- ing infrastructure.”
Ross Cutler
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GRAIN & PROTEIN
Page 12 – Australian Pork Newspaper, June 2019
Antimicrobial stewardship: a mindset change
IN the Netherlands, changes in antimicrobial policy began with an out- break of Q fever in people, which was followed by an inquiry into animal pro- duction practices and the use of antimicrobials in animal production.
Then, in 2009, an ex- tremely resistant stomach infection spread in people across the country.
The source was found to be bacteria from food ani- mals resistant to specific antibiotics.
At that time the minis- ter for agriculture Gerda Verburg, in a press in- terview, made an off-the- cuff commitment to re- duce antimicrobial use in animals within a specific time frame.
Her sudden announce- ment became policy.
This led to greater trans- parency in recording and benchmarking antimicro- bial use on farms, bench- marking prescribing prac- tices of vets, strengthening the role of vets, promoting animal health initiatives and the prudent use of antimicrobial medicines in line with official reduc- tion targets.
The Dutch started with a plan developed by a work- ing committee involving farmers, vets, feed compa- nies, slaughterhouses and the animal health service.
Preventive dosing stopped.
Antibiotics could only be given after a veterinary inspection.
And farmers would be expected to cut their use of antimicrobial medicines for animal health severely.
Between 2009 and 2015 the Dutch cut their use of antimicrobials in farmed animals by 58 percent.
Their ongoing strategy is about further enhanc- ing pig health by improv- ing farm management through a traffic light system, rewarding low an- tibiotic use (green) farms by market rewards and lighter regulation and pro- viding extra assistance to high using (red) farms.
The Dutch are also in- vestigating tools that measure the effect of low- er antibiotic use on an- timicrobial resistance as well as a system to moni- tor diseases on farms.
They are also continu- ously researching animal nutrition strategies that could reduce the need for antimicrobial use.
Lowering antimicrobial use requires a change in practices.
This means behavioural changes for prescribing vets, owners, managers and farm staff.
Changing human behav- iour is tough, especially when it means changing things done every day.
Any change process in- volves awareness of both the need and intention to change behaviour.
This intention to change must transition into action, followed by a maintenance
☛ continued P13 www.porknews.com.au