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South Dakota hog industry gets hit with respiratory virus

It’s been a tough year for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome or PRRS in South Dakota. Glenn Muller, the executive director with the South Dakota Pork Producers Council, tells Brownfield some farmers had to depopulate and others are trying to vaccinate hogs to avoid respiratory problems or losing piglets.

“That’s the main thing, you lose a whole cycle of production or multiple cycles of production if you aren’t able to get ahead of the disease.”

State Veterinarian Beth Thompson says the virus can survive in cold, wet conditions and can also mutate; that’s why enhanced biosecurity is important.

“For general biosecurity, whether you’re talking on the sow farm or on the finished side, is making sure you’ve got a change of clothes, making sure people aren’t traveling from site to site, transportation of your pigs is biosecure to make sure you’ve got healthy pigs walking into the barn.”

Brownfield talked with Muller and Thompson during the South Dakota Pork Congress this week.