How are pig immunization programs formulated? Mastering these key points is crucial

With the continuous development of the @#@227@#@ industry, the breed quality of pigs is gradually improving, and their numbers are also increasing; the pig farming industry has created relatively good economic benefits for the vast number of pig farmers. Entering the second half of 2002, the pig market rose steadily, with the selling price of fattening pigs at 6.40-6.80 yuan/kg: the selling price of commercial piglets at 12.00-13.50 yuan/kg: in the spring of 2004, pig prices reached their highest value in recent years, with the selling price of fattening pigs at 7.60-8.20 yuan/kg: the selling price of commercial piglets at 13.50-19.00 yuan/kg; bringing the pig farming industry a great opportunity rarely seen in many years. But piglets were in short supply. Investigating the reasons, in addition to increased social demand, relatively few existing foundation sows, and winter being the off-season for farrowing, etc., the decline in sow reproductive capacity and the massive illness and death of piglets due to epidemic diseases are important reasons. After conducting extensive surveys of some pig farms and numerous rural free-range pig farmers in the three northeastern provinces, and after research and analysis, it was found that the phenomena of emphasizing treatment while neglecting epidemic prevention, emphasizing feeding while neglecting management, emphasizing disinfection while neglecting hygiene, and emphasizing pens while neglecting the environment are widespread. Among these, there are more problems in epidemic prevention. In different regions, different pig farms, different farmers, and even the same pig farm or the same free-range farmer at the same stage, there are problems of non-standard immunization operations. Farm household pig farming also has the phenomena of old concepts, poor technology, tight funds, and little information: large-scale pig farms have phenomena such as epidemic diseases brought in by introduced breeding pigs, many epidemic prevention loopholes in the farm over many years, and frequent turnover of technical management personnel; this has caused confusion in pig immunization programs and led to the occurrence of many infectious epidemic diseases that should not have occurred. For this reason, the immunization programs that different categories of pigs must receive, as well as immunization programs and immunization key points for reference, are listed to provide reference for pig farming colleagues in production.

1 Pig immunization programs

2 Immunization key points

The immune response of pigs is a biological process influenced by many genetic factors and environmental factors. It is impossible to provide absolute protection. Most pigs show a moderate level of immune response to antigens, while a small portion of pigs have a very poor immune response. Therefore, the protection provided by vaccines is not one hundred percent. Even so, a general protection rate of 60%-70% is sufficient to effectively prevent the spread of disease within a pig herd, so the effect of vaccination is still quite significant. In order to help the vast number of pig farmers strengthen their correct understanding of pig herd immunity, the immunization key points are summarized below for everyone's reference.

2.1 Formulate a reasonable immunization program

Pig farms should formulate a reasonable immunization program according to the epidemic characteristics of the local area or the farm itself, while one-sidedly copying the immunization programs of other pig farms can also easily lead to immunization failure.

2.2 Choose appropriate operating methods for immunization

When immunizing pigs, technicians should personally take the lead in correct operation on site, and guide every operator to be able to immunize with appropriate and correct operating methods. For example, because the Japanese encephalitis virus is very sensitive to iodine, iodine tincture disinfection is prohibited at the injection site, otherwise the effect will be poor. When immunizing with mycoplasma pneumonia vaccine, it needs to be injected into the thoracic cavity, and the injection must be accurate so that immunization failure due to improper operating methods does not occur.

2.3 The dose of vaccine inoculation must be accurate

When vaccinating, many pig farms do not correctly choose the dose according to the vaccine manufacturer's instructions, but determine the dose based on past experience and subjective judgment. Some pig farms set the correct dose, but during the vaccination process they use "flying needles" or are unskilled in vaccination techniques, resulting in an insufficient vaccination dose, which reduces the vaccine titer or makes it ineffective, failing to achieve the immunity it should.

2.4 Strengthen routine feeding and management

Whether immunization succeeds is crucial to routine feeding and management. Adopting comprehensive measures is the fundamental guarantee for pig herd health. When feeding and management are improper, and when affected by adverse factors such as cold and dampness or sudden climate changes, immunization should only be carried out when environmental conditions meet the requirements. Not using antibiotics and other anti-infective drugs in the recent period of vaccination will significantly improve the immunization effect.

2.5 Do a good job in antibody testing of immunity levels

The pig body's own ability to respond immunologically to vaccines will vary with factors such as the pig's health status, environmental conditions, and vaccine quality. Especially when the disease resistance of pigs is not high, multiple immunizations may interfere with each other: in order to accurately understand the immune situation of vaccines in pigs, pig farms should, according to the immunization period of each vaccine, regularly conduct antibody testing in proportion to the number of immunized pigs. The next immunization should be decided according to the antibody level.

2.6 Immunize when the pig herd is in a healthy state

The pigs to be immunized must be healthy. Pigs that are weak in constitution, diseased, have a high body temperature, or have poor appetite should not be immunized. In some pig farms, the technical feeding personnel, in order to save trouble and facilitate management, do not treat different categories of pigs differently during immunization, and uniformly vaccinate regardless of whether they are healthy or not. This often causes related diseases.

2.7 Manage vaccines well

If vaccines are not stored, transported, and preserved in strict accordance with the storage, transportation, and preservation requirements for biological products during the processes of storage, transportation, and preservation, or if the vaccines are out of control, for example, swine fever vaccine can only be preserved for 18 months under the condition of -15 degrees C, but during transportation the temperature of the swine fever vaccine is 0-8 degrees C, then it cannot still have normal immunity at 18 months, so the pig body cannot produce enough protective antibodies, causing immunization failure.

2.8 Use combined vaccines as little as possible

When using combined vaccines, it must be done under the guidance of a veterinarian and in combination with the actual conditions of the local area and the farm. In general, the use of combined vaccines is not recommended. In areas where the epidemic situation is unstable, using combined vaccines often fails to achieve the immunization effect it should.

2.9 Disinfection of injection equipment

Utensils such as syringes and needles must be disinfected before use; at the same time, the injection site should also be disinfected. A needle must be replaced for each pig injected. Used utensils, empty bottles, rubber stoppers, etc. should be promptly disinfected by boiling or buried deep. If discarded casually, they will cause contamination and trigger epidemic diseases.