Canadian swine veterinarians and the animal health arm of drug maker Pfizer have set up a new program to train hog producers on how to identify sick animals.
The program, dubbed the ABC Pig training program, is to be offered nationwide exclusively through hog veterinarians and is meant to set up a simple system by which producers can detect pigs in acute, subacute and chronic stages of disease.
The ABC Pig workshop, which includes a half-hour training video, focuses on learning to identify pigs based on the classification as an A pig, B pig or C pig, and understand how well each type responds to treatment, Pfizer said in a May 17 release.
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Producers then practise the ABC concept and are given tools to put the program to work on their farms, the company said.
If a producer can identify a sick pig earlier, such as in the A stage when an animal is just starting to show symptoms of a disease, “the treatment choices are much more likely to lead to better responses,” veterinarian Walter Heuser, Pfizer Animal Health’s swine business unit director, said in the release.
Hog producers can get more details about the program from their herd veterinarian or from their area Pfizer rep, the company said.
