1. Abstract accepted for 6th Asian Pig Veterinary Society congress, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, September 23-25, 2013
INTRODUCTION OF PRSSV VACCINATION WITH PROGRESSIS® IN AN ITALIAN HERD VACCINATING SOWS WITH CIRCOVAC®: A CASE REPORT
Francesco Salvini1, Giorgio Leotti2, François Joisel3
1DMV, Brescia, Italy; 2MERIAL SpA Italia, Milano, Italy; 3MERIAL SAS, Lyon, France
giorgio.leotti@merial.com
Introduction
This case report illustrates the benefits of modification in herd management practices and particularly the progressive introduction of PRSSv vaccination with PROGRESSIS ® in addition to PCV2 vaccination (CIRCOVAC ®) on reproductive performance in a well- managed operation located in Italy.
Case Description
The farm was a 1200-sow farrow-to-finish operation managed under a continuous flow management system. The gilts came from a self-replacement stock housed separately from the sows until their first farrowing. The herd was Aujeszky’s disease free and PRRSv positive as well as PCV2 positive. Key evolutions of herd management practices are reported in the table below (Table 1):
Table 1. Schedule of events
Period
Operation
2010-2012
Progressive improvement of feed caracteristics
2011/2012
Weaning age delayed from 3 to 4 weeks of age
End 2012
Synchronization procedure abandoned
February 2010
CIRCOVAC vaccination implementation in gilts and sows according to the manufacturer recommandations
2011
PRRSv vaccination with PROGRESSIS introduced in gilts only (2 ml, IM, primo immunization in quarantine then one booster injection 70-80 days of gestation
2012
Sow mass vaccination with PROGRESSIS + one booster injection at 70-80 days of gestation
2nd quarter 2012
PROGRESSIS vaccination at 7of lactation and 70 days of gestation for each sow
Average reproductive performances of the herd were extracted over three consecutive years from the farm monitoring software.
Results and Discussion
Fertility and prolificity data are described in Tables 2 & 3.
The modifications introduced in reproductive cycle schedule led to a decrease of the number of parities per sow. The potential effect of desynchronizing estrus could not be clearly assessed since it occurred lately during the monitoring period.
A clear lengthening of gestation duration was observed over the monitoring period as well as a definite improvement of the farrowing rate. Following the implementation of PRSSv vaccination in gilts, the farrowing rate in gilts increased from 82.8% to 90.8% at least; then following sows and gilts vaccination, a 92.3% farrowing rate was obtained for the whole herd. Consequently between 2010 and 2012, almost 10% improvement of the farrowing rate of the whole herd was obtained.
Table 2. Fertility data over 3 consecutive years.
2010/12
2011/12
2012/11*
Total Nb of gilts or sows
1116
1044
1123
Nb AI
3007
2845
2914
Nb Gestation
2507
2540
2690
%
83.4%
89.3%
92.3%
Nb Abortion
58
40
38
%
2.3%
1.6%
1.4%
Nb AI (Gilts)
711
609
638
Nb Gestation (Gilts)
589
560
579
% (Gilts)
82.8%
92.0%
90.8%
Weaning-to-estrus interval
6.77
7.32
6.24
Days of gestation
114.56
115.41
115.74
Days of lactation
24.64
27.74
28.11
Interparity interval
145.97
150.47
150.09
Nb parity / year
2.50
2.43
2.43
*2012 records end in November. Nb=number
Table 3. Prolificity data over 3 consecutive years.
2010/12
2011/12
2012/11*
Total born alive / litter
13.26
14.14
15.01
Total born alive / litter
11.87
12.84
13.79
Total weaned / litter
9.94
10.47
11.28
Total born alive / sow / year
33.15
34.29
36.51
Total born / sow / year
29.68
31.14
33.53
Total weaned / sow / year
24.87
25.4
27.42
Total born alive / year
33241
35905
37231
Total born / year
29755
32609
34197
Total weaned / year
24931
26600
25619
*2012 records end in November.
Moreover, a clear and steadily improvement of prolificity indexes was observed. Particularly, litter size increased by 1.75 born alive piglets per litter between 2010 and 2012.
Consequently the number of piglets weaned per dam increased from 24.87 to 27.42 following PRRSv vaccination implementation, despite the lengthening of the reproductive cycle.
Conclusion
This case report showed PRSSv vaccination implementation with PROGRESSIS in a herd vaccinating sows with CIRCOVAC as an effective tool to help improving fertility and prolificity parameters in a herd with good performances under Italian conditions.
®PROGRESSIS and CIRCOVAC are registered trademarks of MERIAL in Italy and elsewhere.