In this publication in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Drs. Valdes-Donoso from UC Davis and Andres Perez from the Center of Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) at the University of Minnesota, measured the impact of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) on the production of weaned pigs.
To do so, they monitored 16 different sow farms, all parts of a single production system in the Midwest for 48 weeks and recorded a total of 8 indicators:
- number of weaned pigs
- number of stillbirths per litter
- number of live births per litter
- number of pre-weaned dead
- number of sows farrowing
- number of sows repeating service
- number of sows aborting
- number of sows dead
For each farm and each indicator, the 12 weeks before the outbreak served as a baseline for the farm performances and the data was recorded until 35 weeks post outbreaks. All of the outbreaks occurred during the second half of 2014. The inventory of the farms varied between 2,714 and 6,009 breeding females.
The following figure represented the weekly average for the 8 recorded parameters from 12 weeks pre-outbreak to 35-weeks post-outbreak.
Based on these results, it was estimated that a PRRS outbreak caused a 7.4% decrease in weaned pigs per sow year, i.e., 1.92 fewer weaned pigs per breeding unit. In an average sized farm of this firm, the slight reduction in farrowing yielded a decline of 249 fewer farrows per year. The chances that a sow repeats service increased by 37%, while aborted fetuses increased by 26% in a year with a PRRS outbreak.
The primary estimate (using 12 weeks as pre-outbreak period) is that PRRS reduced weaned pig production per farm by 7.4% on an annual basis, leading to a decrease in output value per sow year of $86.6, or $367,521 per farm year for an average sized farm. If instead we assume the outbreak began in t −1 (i.e., using 11 weeks as pre-outbreak period), the estimated reduction in weaned pig production was 7.6%, or $88.8 less per sow year and an average revenue loss of $376,773 among the farms studied.
Results showed that weaned pig production declined in week t − 1, although statistically insignificant, as did several performance indicators. The data suggest that the average PRRS outbreak in this set of farms began at least one week before it was announced.”
The rise in abortions was the strongest signal of PRRSV activity in our data. Increased surveillance, particularly to rising abortions, may allow farms to identify PRRS more quickly.
The length of PRRS outbreaks, as well as their effects over time, is highly variable. The results of this study demonstrate that PRRS has a negative effect on weaned pig production for a longer time than previously estimated. Indeed, the estimated means of weaned pig production remained below the baseline throughout the 35 weeks that we are able to observe following the outbreak.
For more details, read the open-access publication on the Frontiers in Veterinary Science website.
Abstract:
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is an endemic disease causing important economic losses to the US swine industry. The complex epidemiology of the disease, along with the diverse clinical outputs observed in different types of infected farms, have hampered efforts to quantify PRRS’ impact on production over time. We measured the impact of PRRS on the production of weaned pigs using a log-linear fixed effects model to evaluate longitudinal data collected from 16 sow farms belonging to a specific firm. We measured seven additional indicators of farm performance to gain insight into disease dynamics. We used pre-outbreak longitudinal data to establish a baseline that was then used to estimate the decrease in production. A significant rise of abortions in the week before the outbreak was reported was the strongest signal of PRRSV activity. In addition, production declined slightly one week before the outbreak and then fell markedly until weeks 5 and 6 post-outbreak. Recovery was not monotonic, cycling gently around a rising trend. At the end of the study period (35 weeks post-outbreak), neither the production of weaned pigs nor any of the performance indicators had fully recovered to baseline levels. This result suggests PRSS outbreaks may last longer than has been found in most other studies. We assessed PRRS’ effect on farm efficiency as measured by changes in sow production of weaned pigs per year. We translated production losses into revenue losses assuming an average market price of $45.2/weaned pig. We estimate that the average PRSS outbreak reduced production by approximately 7.4%, relative to annual output in the absence of an outbreak. PRRS reduced production by 1.92 weaned pigs per sow when adjusted to an annual basis. This decrease is substantially larger than the 1.44 decrease of weaned pigs per sow/year reported elsewhere.
