PIG DISEASES

Southland Times, Issue 23182, 24 April 1937, Page 14

PIG DISEASES

HYGIENIC CONDITIONS IMPORTANT While contagious pneumonia and necrotic enteritis in pigs very seldom lead to any widespread mortality, yet their frequent occurrence renders these diseases of very considerable importance. ' The fact that they are so closely associated with unhygienic conditions and unsatisfactory methods of feeding renders their control somewhat difficult, and it is only by a process of education of the stock owner on the importance of hygienic conditions and clean methods of feeding with regard to these diseases of pigs that much improvement can be brought about. Only too often shelter from wind, sun and rain is absent in the piggeries, and the methods of feeding adopted are such that contamination through diseased pigs may easily occur and the disease spread among the healthy animals. Sometimes, when inspecting piggeries, the impression is almost created that the system of drainage adopted was deliberately planned to facilitate the spread of disease, as one finds only too often the main drain leading along the foot of the pig sty is so constructed that the drainage from one pig sty flows through all the others, whereas, of course, if properly constructed, the drainage from each pig sty should lead straight out into the open, and if any common drain is provided it should be constructed outside the piggeries and not inside. The menace to health provided by the dirty conditions so often associated with the storage of skim-milk for pigs is not. sufficiently recognized. One would almost think at times that there is a fear in the minds of the stock owners lest the pigs should get fresh, clean milk. Rotten milk is not a food material for pigs or any other animal, and when, as is usually the case, it has been exposed to sun and dust for many hours, it can readily be understood how easily infection may be spread through the animals. Milk exposed to the sun, if contaminated by undesirable organisms, provides one of the most suitable materials in which such organisms can develop.