Farmscape for October 2, 2012

Pork producers in Manitoba are being invited to take part of a PRRS prevalence study.
A project being conducted by Manitoba Pork Council in partnership with the Canadian Swine Health Board will provide funding for PRRS testing at 85 sites in Manitoba.
The goal is to gain a better understanding of what pork producers can do to prevent the PRRS virus from infecting their herds and identify the most effective strategies for preventing PRRS outbreaks.
Mark Fynn, an animal care specialist with Manitoba Pork Council, says producers who have a desire to know their PRRS status will be involved as well as their herd vets who will be expected to collect blood samples on farm for submission for testing for the PRRS virus and interpret the results.

Clip-Mark Fynn-Manitoba Pork Council:
Producers that are eligible would be CQA registered producers that have been trained onto the National Biosecurity Training Program and they can't have already submitted PRRS results to us so any sites that are trained onto the program that haven't submitted PRRS results to us are eligible for the program.
The information will be gathered and it'll be used by the industry to develop strategies on controlling and eliminating PRRS in Manitoba as well as the Canadian swine herd as a whole.
I think that's why the Canadian Swine Health Board recognized, they really funded this project because they recognized the unique opportunity that Manitoba had with the data-sets that we've collected.
Now the good news is that we've also got to the point where we're able to train producers individually on site at their farm and that training will be conducted by their herd vet if they so wish.

Fynn says, as far as time frames go, researchers hope to have the analysis done by March so herds will need to be tested by the end of December.
For more information on the study or to enroll in the project producers should contact Manitoba Pork Council directly or their own herd health vet.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council