Veterinary Oversight Recommended when Using Spray-Dried Blood Plasma

By Bruce Cochrane

A Red Deer Swine Veterinarian is encouraging pork producers considering the inclusion of blood plasma products in rations for newly weaned to do so in consultation with the herd veterinarian.

Spray-dried blood plasma has been commonly included in phase 1 starter diets for pigs for about the first 10 days following weaning to help them make the transition from milk to solid feed and get them off to a healthy start.

However the feeding of porcine blood plasma products has come under intense scrutiny as a result of concerns that products contaminated with the virus responsible for Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea may have been responsible for spreading the infection.

Dr. Kurt Preugschas, with Innovative Veterinary Services in Red Deer, encourages producers to speak with their herd veterinarian regarding any questions or concerns they may have with feed biosecurity on their farms.

Dr. Kurt Preugschas-Innovative Veterinary Services:
After we visited the American Protein Company plant in Calgary we definitely have a better understanding of how they process their products.

The good news is that they have completely separate production lines between porcine and bovine blood products.

Also they're sourcing all porcine blood products from western Canada and all bovine blood products from Alberta so this local supply from negative animals definitely helps to reduce the risk as long as we continue to be negative.

I think that's the key point.
With this said though the feeding of porcine plasma and other porcine by-products continues to be a relatively high risk for biosecurity on your farm.

Where as feeding bovine plasma products there will be a definitely lower biosecurity risk than porcine especially with segregated production at the plant.

Dr. Kurt Preugschas stresses, most importantly, these decisions should be evaluated in consultation with your herd veterinarian.

Source: Farmscape