GI Disease in Pigs Flashcards
Discuss GI disease in Pigs?
- GI dz very common
- Major economic loss to industry
- Direct –death, treatment
- Indirect –slow-growth, poor performance
- May be infectious or non-infectious
- Viruses, bacteria & protozoa common causes
- Rapid and accurate diagnosis vital
- Diarrhoea is primary clinical sign
- Also: sudden death, vomiting, perineal staining
What can be seen here?
Staining on pigs legs and peri- anal staining clues to GI disease
Describe pre-weaning infections (0-4 weeks old)?
Pre-weaning (0-4wks old)
1. Rotavirus
2. Colibacillosis
3. Coccidiosis –Isosporasuis
4. Clostridialenteritis
5. Corona viruses -TGE- PED -HEV
Describe post-weaning infections (>4 weeks old)?
Post-weaning (> 4ks old)
1. Post-weaning colibacillosis
2. Proliferative Enteropathy –ileitis
3. Spirochaetaldiarrhoea (Colitis)
4. Salmonellosis
5. Brachyspira–swine dysentery
6. Yersiniosis
7. GI torsions
8. Gastric ulcers
9. Parasites –Trichuris, Ascaris, Eimeria(rare)
Discuss Post-weaning colibacillosis
- Common worldwide
- Usually occurs within 10 days after weaning
- E. coli with specific attachment factors and verotoxins– do not cause physical damage
- Watery yellow diarrhoea stimulated by verotoxins
- Pig usually alert and eating
- Often recover OK if treated
What can be seen here?
E. coli disease –watery yellow diarrhoea 7 to 10 days after weaning
Post weaning collibacillosis management/treatment?
- Watery yellow diarrhoea
- Most commonly vaccines given to sows to pass on immunity
- Sow vaccines (gletvax6) –protect piglets
- Piglet vaccines (oral/live –not popular)
- Control with zinc oxide (in-feed, soon to be banned as spreads into watercourse)
- Apramycin, paramomycin, florfenicol (antibiotics not to be used preventably only when disease present)
- Acidification of water
- Diets with lower CP (crude protein) will help – Downside is pigs don’t grow.
- Highly digestible diet, source of lactose, gradual feed change, increased hygiene
- Get lab diagnosis and c+s and toxins
- If shigatoxins present –will be oedema disease not diarrhoea – sudden death
Name all the different manifestations of Porcine Proliferative Enteropathy Complex -Ileitis?
1.Porcine Intestinal Adenopathy (PIA) chronic disease in growers
2. Necrotic Enteritis (NE) young growing pigs
3. Regional Ileitis (RI) chronic watery diarrhoea
4. Proliferative haemaorrhagic enteropathy (PHE) -Acute haemorrhagic disease in finishers and breeders
What is this?
Lawsonia intracellularis
Surveys show very common globally
What are the facts of Ileitis?
Ileitis Facts
- Duration of diarrhoea -3 days to 3 months
- Shedding of Lawsonia
- –90% -only 3 weeks
- –10% -3 to 12 weeks
- Persistent shedders
- Lawsonia viable in faeces for 2 weeks
- Low infectious dose
- Each faecal output can contain 100’s of infective doses –faeco-oral transmission
- Lawsonia easily spreads around a farm (sows/older growers)
- Endemic disease –triggered by diet change/environment; severity dependent on dose
Discuss PIA: PIA -porcine intestinal adenomatosis -chronic and subclinical ileitis?
- Endemic on many farms
- Lesions vary from mild to severe in many herds and situations
- Causes variation in pigs, subclinical and clinical cases
How is PIA diagnosed?
Faeces: PCR (unvalidated)
Post Mortem: ‘Hosepipe’ ileum
Histopathology: pathognomonic – gut degradation can impact diagnosis
What kind of Ileitis is this?
Diarrhoea due to Chronic Ileitis
- 6 to 20 week-old pigs
- Mild to severe
- Brown-grey-green diarrhoea
- Not mucoid
- Non-haemorrhagic in the chronic and sub- clinical forms
- Pigs with weight loss
- Variable growth rates6 to 20 week-old pigs
- Mild to severe
- Brown-grey-green diarrhoea
- Not mucoid
- Non-haemorrhagic in the chronic and sub- clinical forms
- Pigs with weight loss
- Variable growth rates
What has happened here?
PHE - Proliferative haemaorrhagic enteropathy
- Usually young adults –4-12 months
- Sudden deaths
- Blood in faeces
- Anaemic
- Rare
- Twisted gut?
- Tylosin
- Sporadic in nature, rare
What is this?
Ileitis vaccine
- effective but challenging to use (expensive)
- Oral and live –can’t be used alongside AB’s
What effective antibiotics are there for ileitis?
Effective antibiotics include
- Tiamulin, Tylosin, Lincomycin: -may have superior intracellular effect
- no evidence of resistance
Pig challenge and field studies completed –In-feed (chronic) and soluble antibiotics (acute outbreak) have similar efficacy –Good products for treatment of ileitis problems
Introduce swine dystentry?
- Swine dysentery charter (optional)–AHDB (must be reported)
- Caused by the microaerophilic spirochaete Brachyspira hyodysenteriae.
- Causes often severe muco-haemorrhagic colitis usually in growing pigs (6-14 weeks), but can also see disease in sows.
What is this and what does it cause?
Brachyspira hyodysenteriae
Causes swine dysentry
Discuss swine dysentery further?
- An expensive disease with a profound impact on production
- Conservative estimates of 25g/day lost live weight gain and 0.2 FCR (Feed Conversion Rate).
- Mortality can be significant, especially in older pigs
- Medication costs £4-5 per pig
- Total costs £6-10 per pig, equating to £50,000 annually for a 500 sow Farrow to Finish farm.
- Difficult to live with
How is swine dysentery diagnosed?
- Clinical signs and gross post mortem findings +/- histopathology
- Faecal sample
- PCR (16s RNA)
- Culture
- NO USEFUL SEROLOGICAL TEST
Discuss epidemiological problems faced when trying to control swine dysentery?
- Faeco-oral infection but incubation period may be 7-60 days.
- Carriers may remain subclinically infected for up to 90 days.
- Organism can survive in moist faeces for 40 days at 50C and 60 days if diluted in tap water.
- Dry warm conditions kill it more quickly.
- Rapidly killed by disinfectants if used appropriately.
- Mice, rats, dogs, flies and cockroaches have been shown to be able to transmit the organism.
What can be seen here?
Mucoid bloody faeces typical of Brachyspira sp. problems