You’re nursing a coffee at the diner when you spot the man in line to order. He’s wearing brightly-colored suspenders crisscrossing his back to hold up slightly baggy jeans, and when he turns, you see he’s also tightly buckled a belt around his waist. You might have a chuckle at the overkill – but his pants are safe from falling!
“Belts and suspenders” is a good analogy to the approach Carthage Veterinary Service took when revisiting the Carthage System managed swine farms’ biosecurity protocols recently to counter the rise of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome breaks across the industry. PRRS is the most economically damaging illness impacting our producers, causing an estimated $1.2 billion annually in lost production. This is according to a recent study by Iowa State University’s Derald Holtkamp.
When CVS/PSM Partner Clayton Johnson, DVM and I sat down to work on this updated biosecurity initiative, we started with a blank slate – not because Carthage System hadn’t always taken farm biosecurity seriously, but because we didn’t want to take for granted that our existing measures were the best to fight PRRS. Although swine producers have made it more difficult for this virus to invade their operations, that means the ones getting through are more virulent, more frustrating and, often, more devastating.
Science-backed review and update
In doing this update, we found most of what Carthage System farm managers and employees were already doing was scientifically sound, so we retooled those into the refocused, updated list of seven main focus areas:…