Farmscape for May 1, 2014

Manitoba Pork credits the high level of on farm biosecurity with helping contain the spread of PEDv within the province.
On Monday the Office of Manitoba's Chief Veterinary Officer confirmed the presence of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus at a high traffic site in western Manitoba, bringing to eight the number of environmental findings in the province, including two incidents where pigs are believed to have become infected in the high traffic site.
Manitoba Pork chair Karl Kynoch says producers have been maintaining very high biosecurity levels and to date only one hog farm in Manitoba has become infected.

Clip-Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork:
Washing and disinfecting has become a very important practice of any of the trucks moving around the province.
Producers need to make sure they continue washing those trucks and having them cleaned before they come to their premises and any other premises they're going to if they're going to high traffic areas.
The one thing that producers need to consider is that all high traffic areas could possibly be contaminated.
You could actually go in and test and then two days later a site could go from a negative test to a positive test just due to the fact of traffic moving around and, as we've seen lately here, how easily this virus can be spread just from trucks catching a loading chute or something like that.
We always want to encourage producers to make sure that they consider all high traffic areas as contaminated.
Again, they've got to take charge of their own destiny on this.
They have to ask if their trucks have been washed before they come on the yards, they need to wash their own trucks and they also need to make sure again that they do understand the protocols at the high traffic areas they go to.
Don't be scared to ask the question, are they washing their trucks and what are they doing to ensure that they are keeping the virus off of their sites.

Kynoch notes we're just coming through that slushy period which is a real challenge for cleaning trucks.
He says once we get into the warmer weather and things start to dry out that will hopefully help reduce the virus but right now we're at a point where the virus is able to spread easily.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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