Farmscape for November 22, 2005  (Episode 1975)

A southern Saskatchewan veterinarian suggests the ability to maintain strict biosecurity offers the Canadian livestock industry one of its greatest advantages when it comes to developing and maintaining international markets for meat products.

Animal disease outbreaks in various parts of the world, including BSE, foot and mouth disease and avian influenza have heightened the awareness of the importance of biosecurity.

Dr. Shawn Davidson, with Davidson Swine Health Services, says improved diagnostic techniques, better isolation facilities and improved knowledge of which protocols work and which don't have allowed swine producers to dramatically improve their biosecurity.

Clip-Dr. Shawn Davidson-Davidson Swine Health Services

The biggest risk factor for any barn is going to be animal entries, the number on way that pigs spread diseases from one pig to the next.

You have to have proper protocols in place to isolate those pigs and possibly test them for some of the key pathogens before they enter the primary herd.

Secondarily we have, things like people can transmit some swine diseases and particularly of concern are the diseases that people can actually be infected with that can then go back and forth between people and swine and the big things there would be influenza and salmonella.

You need to have some consideration of those when dealing with personnel entry.

Another big one that needs to be thought about is rodent control.

Rodents will transmit pathogens, again salmonella being a very important one and keeping barns as rodent free as possible is going to be a really key cornerstone of any biosecurity program.

Birds as well, there are some theories that they could potentially spread influenza.

Certainly they can also spread salmonella so keeping bird screens maintained, making sure that there's no gaping holes in walls anywhere will do a good job of keeping birds out of facilities which is also an important measure.

Dr. Davidson says Saskatchewan, Alberta and western Manitoba have a tremendous advantage in terms of biosecurity because of their low populations of pigs, relatively few barns and large distances from one barn to the next.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

-Dr. Davidson presented his information earlier this month to those attending Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2005.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council