Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
your farm. Practice good hygiene, quarantine new pigs, and ask visitors to wear plastic over
their shoes to prevent the spread of disease.
Swine erysipelas:
Swine erysipelas is a bacterial disease that usually occurs in young pigs
between 3 and 12 months old. Swine erysipelas can be fatal. The erysipelas bacteria live in
the soil on the farm, and once the bacteria are established, they can be hard to eradicate. Infec-
ted pigs continually re-infect the soil with bacteria in their urine and manure. Symptoms of
swine erysipelas can be recognized by the lesions that appear on the neck, ears, shoulder, and
stomach of the pig. They are usually red and form a diamond shape, but the lesions may range
from pink to purple. Once the skin lesions appear, the pig may die in two to four days. Milder
forms of the disease do not cause death, but the pig's temperature may spike up to 108 de-
grees, which can lead to dehydration and harm to internal organs. Penicillin is used to treat
swine eryisipelas. If you suspect your pigs have swine erysipelas, you should contact your
veterinarian. You will need to discuss ways to eradicate the bacteria from your farm so your
pigs are not re-infected.
The type of bacteria that causes swine erysipelas is always present on pig farms. It is in the
soil, carried by other animals, and present in the tonsils of pigs. There is little you can do to
remove it from your farm. However, there are contributing factors that may make swine ery-
sipelas more likely to appear in your pigs. You may see a surge in swine erysipelas if you
have encountered any of the following on your farm:
• You have wet and dirty pigpens.
• You give your pigs wet feed, especially if you feed milk byproducts.
• Your pig house constantly has pigs living in it without a chance to air out for a few weeks
or months.
• Your waterers carry the bacteria.
• Your pigs are otherwise ill or stressed.
• There are sudden changes in temperature with a fast onset of summer weather.
• You make drastic changes in your pigs' diets.
You may not be able to do much about changes in temperature or summer weather, but you
can see to it that your pens are clean, and you can control your pigs' diet, among other things.
Try to take care of some of these conditions, and you may keep swine erysipelas from appear-
ing.
