Preparation for African Swine Fever is at Your Fingertips

By Elizabeth Hines

On July 28^th, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory confirmed African swine fever (ASF) in samples collected from pigs in the Dominican Republic. African Swine Fever has been a major focus of concern to the swine industry since August 2018. If you have forgotten about this disease or have believed that much of the excitement was for not, these more recent cases should bring it roaring back to concern for pig producers. Concern, however, that should motivate you to prepare, not panic.

Preparation for pig farmers is at your fingertips. Unfortunately, there still is no vaccination for this disease (they are getting closer!), but ASF has been found to be a slow-moving disease and likely to be kept at bay by good biosecurity and awareness on and off your farm. Let’s review some resources that you might be interested in reading up on if you need to brush up your farm biosecurity and pig health management.

First and foremost, get a biosecurity plan in place. Resources for evaluating biosecurity on your farm, building a plan, and critiquing your plan are available through numerous resources. Your local resources are available through Penn State Extension in the form of videos, while a wealth of hard copy templates and guides are available through the Secure Pork Supply (SPS) program. The SPS program is of great importance for Pennsylvania pig producers. In the event of a disease outbreak on PA soil, your ability to move pigs (for any reason), and potentially stay in business, may be hinged on having a written SPS plan on hand. Luckily, the Center for Poultry and Livestock Excellence is supporting a series of in-person biosecurity planning events that Penn State Extension is hosting this fall to help you build your SPS plan from scratch  or to help translate your current biosecurity plan to the SPS template  . Register online or give us a call to start that first step for your farm: tel:1-877-345-0691.

But biosecurity is not the only steps you can take to safeguard against ASF or any disease on your farm. Reviewing your feed sources  , visitor policies, and mortality management plans  will go a long way to ensuring you are prepared to deal with an outbreak of disease, should that happen.

In particular, knowing your feed sources and keeping uncooked meat away from pigs is paramount to preventing the spread of ASF and other high consequence animal diseases. To ensure feed safety, have a conversation with your feed supplier, and keenly follow garbage feeding regulations. As a reminder, in PA you must be licensed to legally feed garbage to your pigs. Anyone feeding garbage or plate waste to backyard pigs should also be aware of the risks. You can find more information on garbage feeding through Penn State Extension  or through the PA Department of Agriculture.

Finally, know the health status of your animals. Working with your herd veterinarian and creating a routine diagnostic testing plan will help you stay on-top of your current herd health status, and help you identify new problems quickly. While diagnostic testing can be expensive, working with a veterinarian to create a plan that makes the most sense for your farm is the best solution to gain the advantages of routine testing, and keep that cost to a minimum.

This is just a brief overview of animal health resources that are available to pig farmers. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions to your farm veterinarian, Penn State Extension or your regional Bureau of Animal Health veterinarian. Right now, the resources pig farmers need are right where you need them, and with devastating diseases like ASF knocking at our doorstep, the time to prepare is now. Don’t wait.