Page 10 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Removing Ceftiofur from a farm treatment list
CEFTIOFUR is an anti- biotic classified as hav- ing high importance for human use.
It is one of the essential antibacterial drugs for the treatment or prevention of infections in humans where there are few or no treatment alternatives for infections.
Ceftiofur is not regis- tered for pigs but some veterinarians have pre- scribed its use ‘off label’.
As the global antimi- crobial debate has gained traction this practice is recognised as being in breach of both good practice and Australia’s antimicrobial resistance strategy.
This case study from 2016 describes the meas- ures involved when cefti- ofur was removed from the farm treatment list.
It has not been used since, with no detrimental
effect on pig health.
The farm was a com-
mercial sow breeder farm. Litters were farrowed in farrowing crates with a combination of plastic and
metal flooring.
The heat lamps and
heated flooring were con- trolled by a remote sys- tem.
There were no health challenges in the sow herd.
The prevalence of clini- cal signs of scours (5 percent of litters) and poor doing piglets (5 per- cent) fell within industry norms.
The management and treatment program for ‘piglet scour’ were Scour- ban, neomycin or Triv- etrin injection and Cefti- ofur injection.
The last is not registered for use in pigs but was used off-label with a vet prescription.
It came with the spe- cific instructions from the herd’s veterinarian for use with ‘non-responsive scour – use only as last resort’.
An animal health review following an ownership change found a high use of Ceftiofur.
Inspection of farm re- cords and questioning of staff revealed all piglets were receiving a dose of Ceftiofur by injection at one to two days of age, re- gardless of clinical signs of scours.
In using Ceftiofur out- side the specific instruc- tion, staff stated: ‘scours have been bad recently.’
They had confidence that Ceftiofur was effec- tive for control.
Despite this, piglet death rates had increased over the last month.
Inspection of animals and facilities found treat- ments for scours in up to 10 percent of piglets from one to four days of age.
All sows were routinely vaccinated for E. coli.
More sows were farrow- ing than expected.
Turnaround time in the farrowing house was shortened to fit the extra sows in.
This reduced cleaning, drying, disinfecting and ‘resting’ time between lit- ters.
Post-mortem inspections of dead piglets revealed scours weren’t the major problem.
The elevated death rate was due to increased over- lays.
Observation of the fa- cilities revealed piglets ly- ing away from the heated creep areas, putting them at higher risk from the sow.
The temperature of the creeps varied from 38- 50C, when the recom- mended temperature for neonatal piglets is 30-32C.
It came to light that there were no routine checks of the controlled set point against the actual temper-
ature in the pens.
The temperature set-
tings were recalibrated and a protocol agreed to routinely check tempera- tures against set points.
A cleaning, drying and disinfection program was agreed.
It allowed time for these operations and more time- ly movement of sows due to farrow.
A bentonite-based dry- ing agent was introduced as part of the disinfection process.
No sow was moved into a pen that was wet.
Feeding close to farrow- ing was reviewed.
Sows were offered mini- mal feed on the day of farrowing and ‘stepped up’ each day to limit over- eating early in lactation.
Staff were retrained in best practice colostrum management and foster- ing techniques.
All piglets could con- sume colostrum from their birth mother and fostering was only used if the piglet did not have a functional teat to use.
Following these meas- ures, pre-weaning deaths decreased by 3 percent.
Deaths caused by ‘scour’ fell from 30 percent to less than 5 percent of all deaths.
Total antimicrobial drug use on piglets fell from about 1.2 doses to less than 0.1 doses per piglet born alive.
Piglet scour was soon considered to be a non- issue at this farm.
The most common treat- ment now for any piglet diarrhoea is to provide electrolytes and review the environment.
Ceftiofur was removed from the treatment list.
The case study is drawn from the Veterinary Pre- scribing Guidelines for Pigs available on the Aus- tralian Pork Limited web- site australianpork.com. au
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European research – more antibiotics
are not better for
pig production
WHEN the Dutch moved to reduce anti- microbial use on pig farms, good results fol- lowed coaching on pru- dent antimicrobial use.
A total of 61 herds were studied over an eight-month period that involved three visits by an external coach.
Medications were re- duced by 46 percent in piglets, 82 percent in finishers and 32 per- cent in sows.
Over this period, pigs weaned per sow, per year increased by 1.1 pigs, daily weight gain increased by 7.7g and finisher mortality rate decreased by 0.6 per- cent.
The European re- search also shows there is a large variability be- tween countries regard- ing how much antimi- crobial drugs are used and the range in doses.
Indeed, the data showed antimicrobial use does not influence the number of pigs pro- duced per year or per sow.
Medication practices between countries and farms are probably driven by belief rather than evidence.
The results summa- rised in a paper pre- sented at the Merck Swine University course in Bangkok late
☛ continued P11
Page 10 – Australian Pork Newspaper, July 2019
www.porknews.com.au