Fibre Content of Feed Linked to Sow Mortality Caused by Excess Water Intake

The Manager of the Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network says adjusting the fibre content of the feed appears to address the problem of sow mortality resulting from excess intake of water.The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network has released its swine disease surveillance report for the second quarter of 2022.

CWSHIN Manager Dr. Jette Christensen says, following diarrhea, the second, third and fourth most frequent clinical problems reported by practitioners were not infectious but rather were the result of the management of feed.

Clip-Dr. Jette Christensen-Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network:

These conditions could be rectal prolapses, it could be gastric ulcers, so stomach ulcers and there's been another condition where you have sow mortality and when you open sow the stomach is water filled and there is torsions and a dramatic picture inside.

These have been discussed over the last number of quarters with the practitioners and they also show up as number two, three and four most frequent causes of digestive syndrome.We had a discussion about sows drinking excess amounts of water, many many litres and basically blowing themselves up.Their stomachs are so filled with water that they died of it.We had that discussion last quarter.

We followed it up with the national call, where the regional networks such as CWSHIN get together and discuss our main issues.We brought that forward for quarter one and we got feedback that excess water intake in sows could be related to low fibre in the feed.And so, correcting the fibre content in the feed immediately solved the problem in a couple of herds in our region.

Dr. Christensen suggests that was a very good example of how the swine health networks are exchanging knowledge and working together.