# Presentation: 920622

## View from the Farm-Mycoplasmal pneumonia

- John A Korslund DVM
- Korn-Land Hog Farm
- 3335 230th St.
- Eagle Grove IA 50533

## My Farm

## My Credentials:

- Extensive Clinical Experience- n=1 herd
- 40 years among hogs
- Reading and meeting “junkie”
- On Beth Lautner’s list!

## 1970’s Finishing Pig

**Driven on the gravel**
**The drive is leisurely**
**Continuous flow**
- Mixed infections
- Mixed immunity
- Little pigs in one end/ big pigs out the other
**Continuous treatment**
**Mycoplasma always there**
**Production ebb and flow**

## 2002 Finishing Pig

**Driven on the race track**
**The drive is fast and crowded**
**AIAO Separate Site Flow**
**Fewer resident infections**
**Little natural immunity**
**No new pigs until old ones all gone- new naïveté**
**No treatment until a problem**
**Mycoplasma not there??**
**Production high or very low**

## Differences related to Mycoplasma

**Continuous Flow**
- Weaned older
- Pathogen transfer
- Immunity wear-down
- Rolling infection
- Non-massive dose
- Antibiotic suppression

**Separate Site**
- Weaned younger
- < Pathogen transfer
- >Immunity @weaning
- Epidemic infection
- Massive dose
- No antibiotic suppression

## Elements of Our Mycoplasmal Control Program

- Separate site AIAO production
- Early weaning
- High levels of passive immunity
- Nursery antibiotics
- Denaguard/CTC
- Lincomix 200
- Monitoring

## Results of Recent Monitoring

- Clinical disease not been a problem
- Coughing has been minimal
- Pigs are **NOT** all _*M.*_* *_*hyo*_.-free
- Other viral pathogens have been present w/o flare-ups of _*M.*_* *_*hyo.*_

## Continuous Flow/2 Ages

## Perfection!

## Slight Bleed-through/SIV H1N1

## Outside Pigs-AIAO

## Troubles, but not Mycoplasma!

## Extra Expense from Clinical Signs

## Active or Maternal??

## Cost of Our Control Program

- Cost lowered by early medication
- Piglet vaccine not used
- Extra handling avoided

- Avg. Dose/Sow

## Why Don’t We Vaccinate Pigs?

- We haven’t needed to!
- Labor considerations/ timing
- Broken needles/ abscesses
- Cost

## Where Vaccine Should Be Used

- Older weaning ages
- Variable passive immunity
- Young sow herd
- Severe secondary (co-)infections
- PRRS
- Influenza
- “Community” nurseries/ commingled weanlings
- Finishing barn concentration areas
- History of PRDC

## Feed-Grade Antibiotics

- Economics is poor for continuous use
- $30 per ton at 5 lb per day costs $.50 per pig per week.
- Even 3 pulses will take 15% of a $10 profit
- Regulatory future is uncertain
- Need to retain Rx as treatment for humane responsibility to the animals

## New Treatments?

- Is the market there?
- If eradication schemes make progress?
- If feed grade antibiotics go away?
- If animal health divestiture continues?
- If vaccines improve?
- Where is the line between diagnostics, vaccines, and treatments?
- USDA-vaccines, diagnostics?
- FDA-”drugs”
- EPA-oral/aerosol products/transgenics?

## Ideal Treatment Concepts

- Eradicate organism from the sow herd
- Prevent/treat infection of piglets
- Eradicate organism from juvenile pig
- Easily administered “-cidal” entities to pigs

## Faster/ Better/ Cheaper...

- Living with _*M.*_* *_*hyo.*_ is not ***economically*** sustainable
- “How do we treat?” is the wrong question in the long term
- “Treatment” needs to be viewed as a systems approach toward elimination of economic losses, if not eradication
- More success may lead to fewer treatment options (pharmaceutical economics)

## Thank-you!