How to prevent and control pig diseases? A detailed guide to practical prevention and control techniques

Many farmers who have just started to expand the scale of their breeding operations run into this problem: how to prevent and control diseases? The larger the scale of breeding, the more important pig disease prevention and control techniques become. So today we will talk about pig disease prevention and control techniques.

I. Common types of pig diseases

1. Swine fever

Commonly known as “rotten intestine fever”, it is a highly contagious disease and one of the main infectious diseases threatening the pig industry today. Its characteristics are: acute cases show septicemic changes, internal organ hemorrhage, necrosis or infarction; chronic cases show fibrinous necrotizing enteritis, and in the later stages there are often secondary infections of paratyphoid and pasteurellosis.

2. Swine erysipelas

Swine erysipelas is caused by Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae. Its main characteristics are persistent high fever, acute septicemia and skin rashes. It is a Gram-positive bacterium with a marked tendency to form long filaments. The bacterium is a straight or slightly curved slender bacillus, about 0.2-0.4 micrometers in size. This type of pathogen has extremely strong resistance to natural conditions such as smoke, drying, putrefaction and sunlight, and the pathogen can still survive in the liver and spleen of pigs after death.

II. Pig disease prevention and control measures

1. Prevention and control measures for swine fever

In the early stage of infection with swine fever, pigs react by tending to burrow into the pen, losing appetite, and gradually rising in body temperature, accompanied by diarrhea, bloody stools and other symptoms. Once symptoms of swine fever appear, sick pigs often gradually move toward death within a week, and the mortality rate is as high as 90 percent. Therefore, for swine fever, the Agricultural Technology Comprehensive Service Center of Luodian County, Guizhou Province, reminds farmers that there are two most effective prevention and control measures.

(1) The first is to vaccinate against swine fever. In the early stage of breeding, all pigs in the farm should be vaccinated to avoid a full-scale outbreak of the disease.

(2) If pigs are found to be unfortunately infected with swine fever, the breeders should immediately isolate them, carry out corresponding disinfection, and inject “Shuanglian Jingdian + Anning”, injecting according to a 1:1 amount, once every three days, to ensure fever reduction and anti-inflammatory effects and prevent further infection. They should also feed the sick pigs drugs such as Wendu Kuaike, and take treatment measures to give the sick pigs comprehensive protection. If the pigs are seriously infected with swine fever, the sick pigs must immediately be subjected to measures such as burning, deep burial and destruction, and culling, to prevent the virus from spreading to other pigs. This ensures the personal safety of the breeders and also prevents unscrupulous traders from letting pork from sick pigs reach the market after processing.

2. Prevention and control measures for swine erysipelas

For swine erysipelas, effective prevention and control measures should be taken to avoid high mortality after pigs become ill, so as to protect overall economic benefits. Taking the Agricultural Technology Comprehensive Service Center of Luodian County, Guizhou Province, as an example, they implement two prevention and control measures for swine erysipelas.

(1) The most effective prevention and control measure is to vaccinate all pigs on the farm with antibodies against swine erysipelas. When choosing a vaccine for swine erysipelas virus, attenuated vaccines or inactivated vaccines are usually selected to prevent infection and growth of the virus.

(2) If it is found that the virus has already been produced in the pigs' bodies, the most effective treatment is to inject the sick pigs with penicillin plus special swine erysipelas serum, and the sick pigs should be isolated at the first opportunity and fed separately, to prevent the virus from spreading through shared water sources, troughs and food. Both of the above methods can effectively inhibit the growth, reproduction and large-scale spread of the virus, and protect the health and safety of the pigs.

Although pig prices have been sluggish recently, in the long run, due to improvements in economic levels and living standards, the meat intake of urban and rural residents is growing steadily, and the pig breeding industry still has a large profit margin. It is hoped that with disease prevention and control techniques providing protection, everyone can achieve better returns.