Comparative study on technology level, major production parameters and management of porcine respiratory disease complex (PRDC) in fattening pig herds

SUMMARY The authors surveyed 52 pig fattening units (58,950 sows, 493,878 growing pigs and fatteners) between March 2011 and October 2012 in Hungary in terms of environment, management, housing, animal parameters and respiratory health status including vaccinations applied against PRDC with the Respig Farm Audit Tool™. Between April 2013 and April 2014 the audit was repeated in 15 swine farms (16,524 sows, 166,491 growing pigs and fatteners). The environmental, management and housing conditions pose a moderate risk in terms of PRDC and the fi nishing facilities always had lower evaluations compared to the growing ones. Between the two surveys the post-weaning ADG increased from 612 to 657 g/day, the FCR decreased from 3.0 to 2.75, and the post-weaning mortality rate, including premature disposal, also reduced from 8.90% to 8.60%. The animal health cost did not change, amounted to €6.7-6.8/fi nisher. The most prevalent herd-level PRDC pathogens were Porcine circovirus (93.2%; 100.0%), Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (90.4%; 100.0%) and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (82.7%; 93.3%), but the most severe was PRRSV in both examined periods. Refl ecting the prevalence of PRDC pathogens the majority of swine herds vaccinated against PCV (75.0%; 86.7%) and M. hyopneumoniae (67.3%; 86.7%), however, none of them against swine infl uenzavirus