Pig cough monitor permits early detection and treatment
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Trials with automatic monitoring and analysis of coughing level in swine housing gives disease alert up to two weeks before visual symptoms
by NORMAN DUNN
A gradual increase in coughing is pretty hard to notice when you're in the hog barn for hours every day. But early identification of more coughing can indicate developing disease up to two weeks before the stockperson or vet sees the symptoms, according to trial results. This early detection is proving a real help in avoiding loss of weight gain as well as reducing antibiotic use.
A research team from Italy and Belgium set up a pioneer system to detect increased coughing levels automatically in hog housing based on a simple microphone system linked to analytical software. This proved so successful that the scientists – from the Catholic University of Leuven and University of Milan – established a spin-off company called SoundTalk. The new firm now co-operates with international livestock equipment company Fancom in the marketing of the Pig Cough Monitor.
But what about all the other background noises in the hog barn? Not a problem now, say the researchers. The refined software can now distinguish between coughs and ventilation noise, people talking or yelling, feeding systems in action or gates slamming. Not only that, the software sorts out and identifies different types of cough. It detects, for instance, dust-related coughing and classifies separately the type of coughing generally caused by pathogens such as swine influenza virus (SIV), PRRS virus or rhinitis bacillus.
At the October 2015 International Symposium on Animal Environment & Welfare in China, European scientists behind the Pig Cough Monitor described recent tests on 10 commercial hog feeding units. These farms were distributed over Europe to give a wide range of climate, housing and management conditions. Sixty throughputs of hogs were studied on each farm and the differences between expert observation and results from the automatic cough monitor system compared.
The measurement parameter used is the so-called Respiratory Distress Index (RD), adjusted for respective barn conditions and hog housing densities. An RD of above 10 reported by the cough monitor usually indicates respiratory problems. In one Dutch farm, 79 weaners (10 weeks) were penned after being vaccinated for PCV2, but not for PRRSv, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae or SIV.
RD was relatively high at penning (48). Immediate antibiotic treatment reduced the RD below 10 within five days. On this particular test farm, there was already a fairly high incidence of respiratory disease amongst other hogs. Possibly because of this, the RD count started rising again. Within 18 days, it had reached 55. During this period, the farmer and the vet were not allowed to consult the cough monitor results and had noticed no serious cough level differences during their inspections.
An oral fluid test of the animals two days later showed presence of M. Hyorhinis and M. hyopneumoniae. High coughing levels were recognized in the barn by this time. So, in this case, an estimated 10-15 days had passed from "recognition" of the respiratory problems by the cough monitor to the time when problems were reported by the specialist staff and vet. Results from the other nine test farms backed these findings.
Microphones suspended about two metres above each hog pen are linked to a small PC with software designed to identify hog coughs and warn when associated noise levels increase. Algorithms applied take into account environment conditions and relate cough noise to the Respiratory Distress Index.
The Bavarian advantage in swine breeding
Even in the small family-run swine production of Bavaria, most producers don't expect much more than five litters per sow. After that, piglet numbers per litter generally start to fall anyway and veterinary costs tend to increase. In fact, returns collected by the Bavarian Livestock Advisory Board (LKV) indicate that commercial sows in this German state average 5.1 litters, with the latest lifetime production figure per sow put at 52.5 weaners.
Most swine production in Bavaria's quarter-million commercial breeding herd comes from the famously healthy local "Bayernhybrid" (Bavarian State Hybrid Scheme) featuring a conventional, although always locally produced and selected, Landrace x Large White mother with, usually, Pietrain terminal sires for the terminal litters. Taking this hybrid alone, only 40 per cent of sows are culled before their fifth litter.
The LKV decided to have a look at other breeds and hybrids in this context and found the next-best performance came from pure Landrace production herds with an average figure of 47 per cent of sows culled before litter five. Sows from the well-known international breeding companies in this survey returned average culling figures before litter five of between 50 and 60 per cent.
The Bavarian advantage is not really surprising. The state swine breeding program has included long production life in its strategy for decades now with hog output per sow also steadily rising. Nowadays lifetime production is six piglets more compared with 10 years ago. An associated survey amongst hog producers highlights another point: good lifetime performance traits with individual sows can be identified as early as the second litter, say the experts.
Faster farrowing from loose-housed sows?
Already the more innovative European swine production sectors are planning for a time when farrowing crates will be banned. The Danes, for example, have seen gestating sow stalls come and go.
It's "goodbye" to farrowing crates next, researchers believe, and at the University of Copenhagen's Danish Pig Research Centre, they're already looking at the effect of so-called free farrowing on subsequent ease of birth. The academic opinion is often that confining farrowing sows in crates does not allow natural nest-making movements and therefore can lead to increased farrowing duration with longer intervals between individual piglet birth.
In fact, a research team around Dr. Christian Hansen found that farrowing did go faster with the loose sows. They produce litters in an average of 352 minutes (from first to last live-born piglet) while sows in crates take 17 per cent longer, or 21 minutes more. Where dead-born piglets are included in the calculation, the sows in crates produce more dead piglets with total farrowing averaging more than an hour longer.
The research team selected 120 LW x Danish Landrace sows on a commercial farm, confining 62 of them in conventional crates for a few days before and during farrowing. The remaining 58 females were loose from the start. Most of the females involved were producing their third litter and the average number of piglets per litter was an impressive 17.9. Crated sows returned an average interval between individual piglet birth of 23 minutes. This was actually three minutes shorter than the performance by the loose-housed ones.
Other work by the same research centre indicates that restricting sow movement for the first few days after farrowing reduces piglet mortality, and the centre has developed the so-called SWAP system with a gate in the farrowing pen to restrict sow movement during and immediately after farrowing – should the stock person think this is necessary on piglet protection grounds.
Dr. Hansen explains that SWAP stands for Sow Welfare and Piglet Protection. He adds that with this approach the aim is to secure production levels through keeping piglet casualties in the crateless farrowing pen low.
Perkier piglets from no-needle vaccinations
Piglets are much more active following no-needle (intradermal) vaccination, compared with the usual invasive needle injection, researchers at Hanover's Veterinary University in Germany conclude. Is this because there's less stress involved with the former? Or could infection through less than hygienic needles be the cause?
No one's very sure so far. But the piglets vaccinated using the IDAL intradermal system spend 46 per cent of their time in the farrowing pen at the mothers' teats. Those conventionally injected suckled for just 35.7 per cent of their time.
Social contact by the intradermal-treated piglets was also more frequent than with the needle-injected piglets. Intradermal vaccination did produce more skin reaction and swelling at the site of the treatment. By day 7 after treatment however, this had disappeared from all piglets.
No significant daily liveweight gain differences were found between the two groups, which totalled 672 piglets on a commercial swine breeding unit. The vaccinations were against mycoplasma and were carried out on day 7.
Afterwards, the farrowing pens were filmed on video with standing, lying, walking, suckling and social contact behaviour recorded.
Conventional vaccination took an average 17 seconds per piglet in the Hanover University trial while no-needle intradermal treatment lasted just 11 seconds on average.
A comparatively quick vaccination with the MSD IDAL intradermal (no-needle) apparatus does not appear to stress piglets as much as the conventional needle. Although no difference in growth performance has been found in trials so far, the no-needle piglets are livelier and spend more time suckling.
Pork production on-screen for local buyers
Nifty marketing by a group of hog farmers around Osnabrück in Germany. Not only do these producers concentrate on producing for the local supermarket, selling at a premium as "meat from the region," but they also demonstrate on-farm production methods with video films. These are screened non-stop over the meat counter in the supermarket. So far, the upbeat marketing method is proving a hit with consumers and pork sales have increased. BP