The Rural Voice, 2002-06, Page 18•"' Our concrete slat design reduces floor
openings by 50% or more in high traffic areas.
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MANURE HANDLING
Using dragline aerway
combination
- minimizes runoff
makes manure incorporation
more effective
- puts manure into top 8" of
soil without turning cover
crops
- aerway cuts like a blade and
lifts gently
works in hay crop & pasture
Ray & Mike Rainmeloo
RR #4 Brussels 519-523-9362
14 THE RURAL VOICE
less suffering."
There's a lot of scientific
research being done into how
swine diseases are transmitted
and how to prevent it. "People are
trying to put some science to the
rules of how much time there should
be between visiting barns,"
Templeton says.
For instance, research is being
done into what role people play in
transmitting disease. Other research
is looking into the role of things like
trucks spreading disease. "We've
previously had rules that said once
you've been in a swine barn you
couldn't go to another barn for 48
hours. but there wasn't a lot of
science to that. There tended to be
some one-upmanship. If pig genetics
company 'A' had a 48-hour rule and
pig genetics company 'B' wanted, for
sales reasons, to say their health
standards were higher, they had a 72 -
hour rule — and really there was no
science as to why."
Most active in this kind of
research is Dr. Sandy Amass at
Purdue University.
There's been little
science behind
biosecurity rules
Dr. Amass has experimented with
tests to see what affects the spread of
disease. She has taken pigs in one
location and inoculated them with
disease and had disease-free pigs in
another location. She has
experimented, for instance, letting
people go directly from the infected
pigs to the disease-free pigs without
changing boots and coveralls versus
changing clothes and boots but not
showering versus changing and
showering. The results, Templeton
says, show that "For the majority of
disease that we have in Canada (with
the exception of foot and mouth
which can be transmitted mech-
anically by people) if you're prepared
to change coveralls and boots and
take a shower the chances of you
transmitting disease are very small."
The danger lies in things like your
vehicle, she says. "It behooves us if
we're visiting farms to clean vehicles
between visits," Templeton says of
professionals who serve the industry.