Is it PED????

[anybody27]

So long story short we had a gilt we had to do a terminal C section on and hand fed the right babies. Over the last four weeks they have all died. What's weird is they seemed healthy and were eating. Had some vomiting and diarrhea but that seemed to clear up. What's the concinsus, should I spend the money to get the test or does it really matter. We have 9 sows with two due to farrow in the next 30 days.

[mathemjm]

Always tough when they start like that have been in your situation, my experience colostrum is a must we use calf-manna all species because it's whats available and has always worked but they are still more prone to issues my biggest problem that finally figured out was low iron I thought we were experiencing respitory issues or strep and would lose bottle babies 3 weeks in and it was just a simple shot of iron that they needed you don't see them degress in a hurry it's gradual I always give a booster now and don't have any issues

[mtbkmom]

Ralco's First Pulse-D was made for these piglets. Also the supplement concentration is usually at least doubled with orphaned piglets (at least with birth rite). Staying on track with iron and then offering creep with these piglets within 7 days keeps their oxygen up and introduces medicated feed into them.

Sorry to hear they all died. We had 7/10 die last year because they refused supplement vs their momma that dried up and my son wasn't paying attention to details. When I got up to the farm and pulled the mother out so they would have to drink the supplement, most of them were too weak.

This is the first year I have seen the First Pulse-D and plan to make it a part of our farrowing program this summer.

[HogDoc]

If you suspect PED I'd tell you to do the test if you were my client so you can try and build immunity in your sows as quickly as possible.
That said what you are describing doesn't sound typical of PED. But the milk replacer does complicate it because those pigs tend to hang on longer than pigs nursing a sow.

[bren]

I have been using First Pulse D for many years. It is an amazing product for weak baby pigs.

I want to share a story that I have been hesitant to, but feel I should. I broke with PEDV almost 4 weeks ago. I am a small breeder that farrows primarily for specific show dates. I am one of the little guys, with no traffic on my property and no pigs in the area, but always have high bio-security standards,especially with the PED scare. I thought I would get it eventually but not so soon.

I had a new litter born with a gilt that just would not settle on a nipple. She was getting thin and suspected the nipple she finally picked was drying up. I offered a kid milk replacer that I really like and she dove right in. In the meantime, I expedited the shipment of a better replacer I have used many times as well.

36 hours after offering the ordered replacer, the little gilt got sick and scoured. 24 hours later the entire litter did the same. They were very ill and needed additional heat. 24 hours after that, the sow threw up,( actually went off feed the night before) had sloppy poop so I weaned ASAP per my vet's recommendation and took them completely off of milk replacer too and onto electrolytes. I did not lose a single pig and they are starting to look great again.

I exposed my other sows to the feces right away and they too became ill. I sent the replacer off to a state university for PEDV testing and it came back postive.

Now this is the controversy. Apparently there is no test to see if the product was infective or not but it did contain Porcine Blood Plasma. Some people tell me that there is no way this could have happened, others say it is very possible. There could be many factors, such as cross contamination. In the future I will do what has been recommended to me. Store any feed at room temperature for at least 7 days before use.

Thanks to some great people, I pulled through this just fine. I would suggest to everyone out there that you keep on hand electrolytes and pre-starter in the event this should ever hit you. ( if you have litters on the ground) I used Resorb and also had Bluelite. There was very little Resorb in my town but had enough to get through until my order came in. Again, was it the replacer or was it something else? I can't tell you. All I know is that everything was fine until that shipment came in. Anyway, we are all disinfecting our boots, vehicles, trailers etc. maybe it is time to look a little deeper.

[Kalaw]

Bren, can you post a link for the Resorb and Bluelite? I'm not familiar with either of these and think it would be prudent to have them on hand. The fact that the milk replacer tested positive is very alarming

[HogDoc]

The test used for PEDv is what is called a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test.

It is important to know that it only tests for genetic material from the virus and the virus can be very dead in the material and still test positive. I wrote about this in one of the other PED threads. To give you an example. In our beef practice we do some work for on preharvest food safety and test for E. coli O157 in and on cattle. The percentage of hide swabs that are PCR positive and negative when we do culture confirmation, to find live viable bacteria, is very high.

There have been many tests done on feed and some have come back PCR positive. To the best of my knowledge we have yet to confirm any feed that has live viable virus that can make pigs sick. That is the case even though lots of reasonable people have had their suspicions. The most famous was the Canadian case where a feed company actually pulled their products and on further testing the feed was not infective.

All that said I sure will not discourage storing feed for a week before feeding it as a precaution. I'd only suggest that you are probably more likely to find viable virus on the bag rather than in the bag.

Here are links to Blue 2 and Resorb at online retailers.

http://www.qcsupply.com/540948-blue2-techmix.html

http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html ... MgodNQ4AWQ

[bren]

The instructions I was given to dilute Resorb for the baby pigs was different from the package directions. Dilute each package with 4 quarts of water VS 2 quarts. You can check with your own Vet.

My pigs did extremely well on the Resorb.