Regardless of the current health status, the approach to addressing the impact a health problem is having on a population is essentially the same.

First, you must identify the problem. Your veterinarian can help analyze production records, conduct postmortem examinations, collect and submit samples to a diagnostic laboratory or conduct serological surveys to get a snapshot of health status.

Once a health baseline is established, your veterinarian can help establish a herd health plan to address disease and health-related issues. Vaccines, therapeutics and health management technologies are but a few of the tools available.

Early detection and intervention is essential to reducing the impact a health challenge has on production, as well as reducing the suffering and loss of the pigs. Early detection may come in the form of clinical symptoms (coughing, sneezing, abortions, diarrhea) or a reduction in water or feed intake.

When unusual or unexpected pig deaths occur, your veterinarian can compile a thorough history of the problem, conduct postmortem examinations and collect proper specimens for diagnostic laboratory analysis to determine the cause of death.

As part of the herd health plan, your veterinarian can also design ongoing disease monitoring protocols that may include periodic serological monitoring and near real-time monitoring of important health parameters. Mortality rates and other production records can help identify problems in their early stages. Early detection and rapid response help lessen the severity of a health challenge and shorten the time to recovery.

Several years ago, Rodger Main, DVM, and other researchers at Kansas State University conducted a large study comparing pigs weaned at various ages from 12 to 21 days of age. The results showed dramatic differences in postweaning performance across the various weaning ages. Besides dramatic improvements in average daily gain as weaning age increased, researchers also discovered profound reductions in mortality in the older pigs at weaning.

The economic benefit of older weaning age is substantial. Some estimate the benefit is up to $1/head for each additional day of age. Another benefit to weaning older pigs came in the form of larger litters in subsequent farrowings from sows with longer lactation lengths.

If you are purchasing pigs, make older weaning age and weight a part of the purchase specifications to improve throughput and average daily gain and reduce mortality. In the end, you will improve productivity and add to the bottom line.

Getting pigs off to a great start applies to newborn pigs as well as to newly weaned pigs.

At birth, there is no substitute for ensuring every pig gets adequate colostrum, which provides the energy and antibodies needed to protect the pigs from diseases.

At weaning, the first few days after weaning are essential as pigs transition from sow's milk to dry feed. Newly weaned pigs are stressed by being removed from their mothers and littermates, being transported and resorted into unfamiliar surroundings with new penmates.

Managing this transition and identifying the pigs that fail to adjust in the first 24 to 48 hours is critical. Pigs that fall back at weaning are destined to do poorly and fall behind other pigs throughout the growing and finishing periods. A poor start contributes to a poor finish.

Pig flow is movement of animals through a farm or system. Segregated production, such as all-in, all-out (AIAO) pig flow, is the practice of completely populating a site, barn or airspace, then at the end of that production period, completely emptying the site, barn or airspace before repeating the cycle. The purpose is to break the group-to-group disease transmission that routinely occurs with continuous-flow production.

AIAO production is one of many health technologies that evolved in the 1980s to become a standard in today's industry. AIAO has gained almost universal acceptance in farrowing and nursery phases, and has gradually been adopted at the growing and finishing stages. The wean-to-finish concept helped advance this technology.

Early adopters of segregated production realized as much as a 10% improvement in average daily gain and upwards of 7% improvement in feed efficiency. Diseases that were once endemic in a flow of pigs, such as APP and atrophic rhinitis, were rendered less harmful by segregating younger pigs from the disease-laden older pigs.