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How do you distinguish bacterial diarrhea from viral diarrhea in pigs?

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How do you distinguish bacterial diarrhea from viral diarrhea in pigs?
After diarrhea breaks out in many pig farms, it is often difficult to distinguish whether it is viral diarrhea or bacterial diarrhea, yet failure to correctly implement medicationtreatmentplans causes severe losses. In particular, pigletviral diarrheacannot be treated with ordinary drugsTreatment. Compared with bacterial diarrhea, viral diarrhea comes on faster and spreads more widely. Therefore, after diarrhea occurs, our first judgment is extremely important. Bacterial diarrhea is also called bacterial scours; here is how to distinguish viral diarrhea from bacterial scours.

(1) Look for differences in the season of outbreak: viral diarrhea mostly occurs in winter and spring, while bacterial scours can occur in all four seasons.

  (2) Look for differences in clinical manifestations: from the terminology, one can see that diarrhea is more ferocious in onset than scours, so look at the form, color, odor, and frequency of defecation. Diarrhea is mostly watery, also called watery diarrhea; scours refer to thin feces, mostly in a loose paste form.

Viral diarrhea, such as porcine transmissible gastroenteritis: young piglets often fall ill suddenly, with acute watery diarrhea, foul odor, and vomiting, quickly becoming dehydrated, with body weight and body temperature dropping, and a mortality rate as high as over 80%; weaned piglets show watery diarrhea and vomiting, with gray or tea-brown feces. Porcine epidemic diarrhea: the sick pig's body temperature rises to 41°C, but returns to normal after diarrhea begins. Piglets within 10 days of age are severely affected, passing yellow or light green thin feces.

Porcine rotavirus disease: sick pigs vomit and have diarrhea, with feces ranging from watery to paste-like, and yellow, gray, or dark in color.

Among bacterial diarrheas and scours, whether it is swine dysentery with bloody feces [piglets and young pigs 7-12 weeks of age are susceptible] and piglet red diarrhea [mainly affects piglets 1-3 days of age, rarely occurs in piglets after 7 days], or piglet yellow diarrhea [piglets 10-20 days of age] and white diarrhea [piglets 1-3 days of age] caused by Escherichia coli, as well as piglet paratyphoid with yellow loose paste-like, foul-smelling feces [mostly occurs in piglets under 6 months of age, more common in piglets 2 to 4 months of age, and highly prevalent in cold weather or at seasonal transitions], most can be distinguished by the color and odor of the scours feces. (Source: Licensed Veterinarian)

 

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