Farmscape for August 8, 2024

A project launched by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is exploring the value of increasing sow vitamin supplementation to boost the ability of her piglets to defend against diarrhea.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, in collaboration with CDPQ and the Western College of Veterinary Medicine is exploring the potential of providing supplemental dietary vitamins to the sow during gestation along with a commercial vaccine to stimulate production of maternal antibodies in hopes of passing increased immunity to her piglets.
Hannah Burlet, a graduate student with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, explains, by providing additional “building blocks” to the dam during gestation, the goal is to stimulate a greater immune response to vaccination.

Quote-Hannah Burlet-Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada-Western College of Veterinary Medicine:
A motivating factor behind this project is the push to reduce antibiotic usage and the upcoming changes to pharmaceutical levels of dietary zinc oxide.
The pressure to find alternative methods of protection against piglet diarrhea is mounting.
Vitamins are natural products that do not cause any harm to animals when used within certain limits which are very far from being reached in this study and, therefore, provide a healthier alternative to improve animal health, in contrast to the use of antibiotics or high levels of zinc oxide, which may potentially cause environmental and public health issues with the rise in development of antibiotic resistance.
Using vitamins does not generate such a problem.
Additionally, the approach was designed to be easily applicable without a large financial investment.
The cost of making the switch to the higher vitamin diet would not be prohibitive and should provide a healthy return on investment.

Burlet says, although some interesting trends are emerging, results are still preliminary.
She says findings will be presented through various pork sector events and published in peer reviewed journals.
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Bruce Cochrane.

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