Why Choose Us To Be A Part Of Your Pig Team?
Here at St Davids we provide a fully comprehensive service for pig farms, from the
small holders to the large scale herds, from indoor fully controlled environment
to outdoor units and from continuous throughput to batch systems, we are able to
adapt our service to suit your particular system to bring you maximum benefits.
Pig health has profound effects on productivity and here at St Davids we are committed
to maximising both.
What We Can Do For You
- Housing assessments
A lot of disease outbreaks are precipitated or perpetuated by housing design. Assessment
of housing tailored to your particular on farm problems may help to highlight problem
areas and how these can be improved.
Measurements to calculate maximum stocking densities for your pens according to
the age group housed, evaluation of trough space, number and type of water access
points, temperature, ventilation, slurry disposal and drainage are all involved
in the assessment.
- Biosecurity appraisal
Looking at your control of disease outbreaks, vermin, visitors policies, hospital
pen procedures and management of incoming stock. We can give advice on what is practical
for your farm to reduce the risk of introducing disease from external and internal
sources.
- Disease outbreak investigations
Advice on medication and control of the outbreak. With aid from:
Post mortems with relevant sampling to identify the cause of the problem if not
apparent on clinical exam
For example many cases of meningitis in post weaners gets written in the medicine
records as strep suis, but what if it was Glassers disease? Diagnosis and frequency
of the incurred problem will alter your choice of vaccination programme, so obtaining
a diagnosis is worthwhile. Crucially, antibiotic sensitivity tests can be done on
cultures to identify which antibiotics are effective for that disease. This will
help form successful antibiotic treatment regimes for diseases present on your farm.
Ultimately this will reduce expenses incurred paying for antibiotics which are otherwise
ineffective and in saving your time rotating antibiotics (which it may or may not
have resistance to), lower the cost of mortalities and reduced FCRs.
- Herd Health Plans
Analysing medical records can help us to address key concerns and work with you
to implement preventative strategies. Taking blood and faeces samples, as guided
by your unit history, will allow us to identify important viral, bacterial and parasitic
diseases present on farm so we can take steps into controlling them.
- Production data analysis
Any data you may keep (FCRs, slaughter weights, ZAP scores, Lung scores, litter
sizes, mortality rates etc.) can be reviewed within highlight to the set up on your
farm. Production data will help us to identify which improvements made will make
the greatest economic return. We will also be able to rate your performance and
monitor trends so when a particular value detrimentally increases/decreases, we
can intervene early and recover the situation. We can also provide advice on practical
record keeping for your farm.
- The Abattoir Work We Can Do
Lung scores for enzootic pneumonia, identification of lung lesions (EP, APP, Viral,
Multifocal abscesses, pleuritis, intersistial pneumonia), milk spot liver, snout
scoring (for atrophic rhinitis), pericarditis and any gastrointestinal tract anomalies
can be identified in the abattoir. Information will then be relayed back to you
with recommendations for future improvements if necessary.
Why does it matter the pig is dead? It matters as any of the above
will have affected the pigs’ performance in terms of growth (which means money).
Monitoring pigs at the abattoir can identify routine problems incurred, even on
batch systems, which are worth intervening on. Relevant samples can be taken at
the abattoir to identify the organisms involved and to perform antibiotic sensitivity
tests.
- Gilt rearing programmes
We all know how important the condition and quality of replacement gilts are in
the future productivity of the unit. Monitoring body condition scores, vaccination
programmes, the timing of service, choosing the correct genetics and managing their
health all contributes to the quality of replacement stock. Here at St Davids we
can help you manage a good gilt rearing programme for your farm and to offer an
independent assessment of your stock.
In Addition We Also Do:
- AI Station Visits
We visit Hermitage Seaborough on a weekly basis to ensure a good health and welfare
status of the AI boars.
- Quarterly Visits – ABP Health Scheme
We visit farms on the ABP scheme on a quarterly basis, certifying farms that meet
the criteria so the meat can be sold as ABP approved. After a quarterly visit a
report for the farmer is written up to cover areas discussed on the day of visit
and to give advice to improve production.
- We Can Provide You with All Your Medicine and Vaccine Requirements (and
just about anything else you may require)
- Perform Humane Euthanasia
- Foot Trimming
- In House Faecal Testing