DES MOINES, Iowa — Years ago, when Mark Soleta of Lakefield, Minnesota, brought in a load of freshly weaned Canadian piglets, he was confident those pigs would easily handle any disease challenges they faced.
That confidence is gone.
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“Every day we’re on eggshells,” he said with exasperation, after asking leading swine veterinarians at the World Pork Expo why today’s pigs are so susceptible to disease.
“We’ve got such a fragile pig.”
Eastern Iowa hog farmer and National Pork Board member Al Wulfekuhle shared the sentiment.
“We all feel the frustration,” he said.
Diseases develop, mutate and sneak in constantly, but the veterinarians flagged the underlying cause of today’s pig fragility.
The hog industry demanded faster-growing and more efficient pigs. Breeders got the message and created pigs that grow very fast, with a great feed conversion ratio, so they spend less time in the barn and eat less per pound of gain than ever before.
That’s where today’s problem may have arisen. These pigs do great when the barn is free of disease. When it’s not, an outbreak can sweep through animals with alarming ferocity.
Breeders pushed hard on pig genetics to get better growth and efficiency, which might have come at the cost of weakening the animals’ immune systems.
“Something will have to give,” said Dr. Deb Murray, describing the tradeoffs that can occur when any creature is pushed to the max.
She and other vets said they think breeding companies now realize they have inadvertently created pigs that are too susceptible to disease, and are trying to bring back some strength, but it won’t be a quick fix. Years will be needed.
It might also mean that tomorrow’s pigs are more disease resistant but grow slower, or farmers might not see the efficiency gains of recent years.
Everything comes at a cost.
What’s a reasonable assumption for barn conditions? When the breeders responded to farmer and processor demands for faster-growing and more feed efficient pigs, they knew disease was a risk. Did they not realize the genetic tradeoff between growth and hardiness?
Did they see the increased disease risk, but assumed contemporary hog producers were generally disease free, so a slight increase in susceptibility was acceptable?
It’s an interesting case of either unanticipated risk or false assumptions.
It’s financially crippling for producers to depopulate a barn, keep it out of production for weeks or months, and then refill it only to have further disease outbreaks. Worse still, producers and veterinarians said diseases like PRRS appear to be taking longer to leave barns, forcing longer and costlier shutdowns.
Other disease management practices might also need a boost as the diseases adapt.
“Just because something used to work (doesn’t mean) it’s … working now,” said Murray.
Diseases have become tougher and harder to eradicate. Farmers have focused more of their efforts on avoiding and fighting disease. Unfortunately, breeding went in the other direction and created very risky pigs.
It was great to hear that Canadian-born pigs have a reputation for high-health among Iowa and Minnesota producers. That has been a Canadian selling point for years. But it was alarming to hear that the fragility of all pigs today is weakening that marketing edge.
It’s a good reminder that the risks we’ve licked today might come back to bite us tomorrow, and as we succeed in one area today, we might create the failures of tomorrow.
