Caretakers Confirm Value

Verlan Van Wyk, who manages 50,000 finishing pig spaces in Iowa for Synergy LLC, instructs pig caretakers to record water meter readings first thing every morning.

“We get 100% compliance because the caretakers have learned it helps them know how detailed they need to be when they look at pigs,” comments Van Wyk. A reduction in water intake is a heads-up to pay extra attention to emerging symptoms, such as reduced activity or coughing, he adds.

Experience has shown Van Wyk that a sudden, 20-30% drop in water intake often means swine influenza has taken hold. And, he has even pinpointed the strain of flu that usually strikes.

“H₃N₂ is what we see the most when we get sudden drops in intakes, and we've backed that up through tissue samples,” he says.

Synergy pigs are free of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and Mycoplasmal pneumonia, which Van Wyk says makes it easier for him to draw conclusions about disease outbreaks compared to herds with a lower basic health status.

When a flu outbreak is suspected, Van Wyk has caretakers give pigs aspirin via water for three days. “Flu is a virus, so all we are doing is trying to suppress the symptoms,” he says. “We want the pigs to feel better so they can get back to what they are supposed to be doing - eating and drinking.”

Synergy is using AP's system at a 4,800-head site to monitor temperature, humidity, water and feed use every hour.

“We are looking at how temperature and humidity affect water and feed intake,” says Van Wyk.

Words of Caution

Brumm cautions that experience is still needed, even with charts to determine whether declining water intakes are due to health problems or other factors, such as environmental changes or interruptions in feed delivery that could cause shifts in drinking patterns.

“At this point, we don't have any type of software that will automatically recognize a problem. There is still judgment involved,” he says.

Bob Baarsch, of Herdstar, says that “noise” in water data from various factors, such as fluctuating environmental temperatures, changes in diet, out-of-feed events, changes in pig inventory or water wastage, makes it difficult to make decisions based on water meter readings alone. He says other data, like temperature, feed consumption and death loss are also important for monitoring purposes.

“If you are going to use water to monitor health in a barn, it is helpful, but it is not a panacea. There are many important things that are going to happen in that barn that you will not see clearly in just water data.”

Water metering isn't perfect, admits Brumm. “But it is one more tool to better care for our pigs.”