The president-elected of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) was arrested on Wednesday in Washington D.C. going through security at one of the U.S. Capitol buildings with a 9-mm Ruger handgun in his bag. Ron Prestage, a veterinarian and part of family-owned Prestage Farms of South Carolina, was charged with carrying a pistol without a license. Reports indicate Prestage has … Read More
USDA Approves VaxLiant Adjuvants for Vaccines
USDA has just approved six adjuvants from VaxLiant that can be added to vaccines to help improve the resulting immune response in cattle and swine. “What this means is that companies can bring new vaccines to market using a shorter timeline, since we already have conducted the research needed to confirm safety for these ENABL adjuvants,” says Steve Schram, VaxLiant … Read More
Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Numbers
USDA’s quarterly hogs and pigs report out Friday revealed the lowest inventory of U.S. swine since 2007, at 62.1 million head – about five percent below last year. Also down five percent from a year ago were the market hog inventory at 56.3 million head, the March-May 2014 pig crop, at 27.4 million head, and the number of pigs per … Read More
Merck Adds to Swine Technical Services Team
Merck Animal Health announced that Mark Engle, D.V.M, MS, has joined the company as a senior technical services manager for the Swine Business Unit. Dr. Engle received his doctor of veterinary medicine degree from Iowa State University and his master of science from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Engle has worked in private practice and swine farm management, as well … Read More
Topigs & Norsvin Announce Merger During WPX14
A major announcement was made during this year’s 2014 World Pork Expo: TOPIGS International and Norsvin International have merged into one company: Topigs Norsvin. The merger will create a global swine breeding company with annual revenues in excess of US $179 million. The newly merged company’s headquarters will be located in Vught, the Netherlands. TOPIGS Nederland, Varkens K.I. Nederland and … Read More
Iowa Swine Day to Discuss Hot Topics in Pork
The pork industry’s response to federal action phasing out some antibiotics used to promote growth in hog production will be discussed June 26 at the third annual Iowa Swine Day at Iowa State University. “Presentations at Iowa Swine Day will provide current, science-based information on the topic of antibiotic growth promotion, its relationship with human health and how new federal … Read More
BIVI Explains ARC Programs & Swine Disease Control
Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) has been utilizing area regional control (ARC) programs with swine producers for more than six years. During their PEDV is Speaking: Are We Listening ? seminar at 2014 World Pork Expo, Dr. Erin Johnson, DVM, technical manager, PRRS Solutions Team explained that the goal of the ARC program, is to voluntarily get a group of producers … Read More
ISU's Dr. Gauger Explains All Things PEDV
The emergence of PEDV took the U.S. by storm and according to Dr Phillip Gauger, with Iowa State University, Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, between April 28 – May 4, 2013 they had four separate ISU-VDL submissions – one from Indiana and three from Iowa – from farms with no relationship. He and his team realized after running diagnostic tests that more … Read More
5-Year PRRS Swine Health Monitoring Project Update
Dane Goede is a PhD student at the University of Minnesota and during grad school, he began working on the then, fairly new, Swine Health Monitoring Project. Today, he has the opportunity to continue working on the project and during a media dinner hosted by Boehringer Ingelheim (BIVI), attendees had the opportunity to learn about the results of the 5-Year … Read More
NPPC Industry Relations Update
Dr. Howard Hill, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) president, veterinarian and producer from Cambridge, Iowa officially kicked off the 26th annual World Pork Expo 2014 (WPX) during a media press conference. He noted that WPX is the largest trade show and exhibition in the world and attendance was nearly 20,000 people over the three day show. Last year there were … Read More