Diagnosis of neonatal pig diarrhea

To be effective, swine practitioners should develop a unit health program. Development should involve unit managers, owners, and employees involved in day-to-day operations. Emphasis on training personnel and management to reduce disease and collection of accurate records is necessary. Routine diagnostics are needed to solve disease problems. Communication with laboratory personnel to ascertain what samples are needed for diagnosis of particular problems cannot be overemphasized. General diagnosis of disease problems outlined by Vinson can be similarly followed within the specifics of diarrheal problems within units. 1. Observe symptoms exhibited by pigs, i.e., huddling, fecal material around perineum, extreme thirst, etc. 2. Evaluate the degree of morbidity and potential production losses. 3. Analyze possible specific causes of symptoms, i.e., environmental cleanliness, affected litter distribution, age of affected neonates, and other populations affected. 4. Examine live animals, i.e., obtain serum samples from a random population, take rectal temperatures of affected neonates, and evaluate fecal pH. 5. Necropsy dead or dying pigs [that] appear to represent the problem. 6. Submit live pigs or appropriate tissues from necropsied pigs to a diagnostic laboratory. 7. Re-evaluate environmental conditions that may be contributing to the problem (remember, unit employees are a part of the pigs' environment). 8. Evaluate management procedures contributing to the disease problem, i.e., lack of adherence to all-in all-out, rapid turn-around decreasing cleaning time etc. Following this format and communicating with diagnosticians should provide for positive results for the producers both entities serve.