Farmscape for September 22, 2020

A pilot project conducted by Iowa State University indicates a phased loading of hogs can be an effective way to reduce the risk of transferring pathogens back to the barn.
Rather than one crew moving pigs all the way from their pens to the trailers, under phased loading one crew takes the pigs out of the barn and another crew loads them onto the trucks.
Iowa State University has completed a pilot project on behalf of the Swine Health Information Center to evaluate the effectiveness of phased loading in interrupting pathogen transfer.
SHIC Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says the objective of the pilot project was to identify low cost biosecurity procedures in an effort to interrupt that transfer of pathogens from first points of concentration, like markets, back onto the farm.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
The key finding for this pilot project was there was a significant difference when phased loading was used.
The significant difference was in the ability to detect possible contamination going back into the pens.
That was an important finding and I think that's something that we're going to investigate as a possible low cost implementable procedure that we could put onto finishing sites to help prevent transport of pathogens from contaminated trucks that would come back from first points of concentration, like markets, back onto the farm.
It gives a possibility of having this low cost efficient and effective way to interrupt pathogen transport and to improve biosecurity.

Dr. Sundberg says the plan is to take information gathered through the pilot study to a larger study, which is just now being designed, that will examine the ability of this procedure to prevent pathogen transfer.
From there, he says, the hope is this information will help to producers reduce their farm's risk of infection.
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Bruce Cochrane.

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