Behind the Lines - December 2013

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Pork producers are as good with numbers as any group in agriculture, but a growing number of scientists are arguing that the commonly used parameters that point towards an operation's financial success aren't taking into account a growing concern – lameness in sows.

Lameness may make sows less likely to eat and thus keep up their body condition during gestation. "Maybe their lameness predisposed them to losing weight and body condition," and therefore reproductive failure and culling, postulates University of Manitoba professor Laurie Connor. "It's all linked together."

Lameness is being addressed by scientists worldwide, but a big part of the most recent publishable scientific research was developed here in Canada, funded partly by research dollars contributed by producers via the Canadian Pork Council. This issue's cover story on lameness, by senior staff editor Don Stoneman, begins on page 6.

Disease transmission is always a concern to producers, who are paying particular attention to porcine epidemic diarrhea south of the border. But other diseases are transmitted from sow to piglets. Our Herd Health writer, veterinarian Ernest Sanford, focuses on these threats starting on page 30.

Still on the subject of sows and piglets, on page 23 our nutrition writer Janice Murphy describes how direct-fed microbials in sow diets can improve piglet health. BP

ROBERT IRWIN