David Burch
David Burch is a veterinarian with over 30 years experience in practice, industry and consultancy. He is a director of his own consultancy company Octagon Services Ltd and the past president of the UK’s Pig Veterinary Society.
Latest Blogs (51-60 of 59)
Manipulable materials - are you using them?
It's an ongoing discussion - mainpulable materials in
a pig house seem quite incompatible with a slatted flooring system. Why not
consider the relatively simple idea of straw racks?
Salmonella testing - is it going to cause a problem for you?
The new EU Salmonella control regulations (EC No 2160/2003) for monitoring
finishers will end in October this year and EU industry targets will be set in
November - will this affect you?
Fully slatted-floor finishing systems - should these be banned?
There are moves within the EU to ban fully
slatted-floor systems for finishers, as they are considered bad for a pig's
welfare for several reasons. A possible alternative, partially slatted
floors, are in many people's experiences worst of both systems. Maybe it's a
matter of management?
Should piglet tail docking be banned in the EU?
Most farmers will have come across the problem at one stage or another:
tailbiting. To prevent this, the practice of preventive taildocking is
widespread. However, in an ideal world, it should not be necessary to trim the
tails off piglets to stop them. Should piglet tail docking be banned in
the EU?
Should we ban piglet castration in the EU?
There are an increasing number of lobby groups in
various EU countries advocating the banning of castration of piglets. On the
29th January the EU commission SCFCAH working group held a closed meeting for
member state officials and invited speakers to consider the
subject.
PMWS and PCVAD - is it still there in Europe?
North America is breaking down with Post-weaning
Multisystemic Wasting Syndrome (PMWS), or as they like to call
it Porcine Circovirus Associated Disease (PCVAD), in its acute form. In Europe,
we have mainly passed this high mortality phase in weaners and growers and have
entered the chronic phase of lower mortality, but often in more valuable finishing
animals. How badly are we affected here in
Europe?
Fighting CSF: "leave your sausages at home"
Coming from the UK, where currently we do not have swine fever, we would
certainly not want the widespread use of swine fever vaccines throughout Europe,
which would potentially mask the disease and its spread.
Boar taint is a risk too high
If you don't castrate you run the risk of boar taint - 50% of
uncastrated boars in Australasia exceeded the sensory threshold level of
androstenone and skatole, the chemicals that cause boar taint. In some Irish
work almost 1 in 10 carcasses will be severely tainted.
David Burch reacts to:'Pigs are habitual animals and do not mind gestation crates'
Generally, pigs are habitual animals and probably the majority of sows kept in gestational stalls are relatively content to be there. However, a significant proportion found it restrictive and to vent their frustration adopted certain vices, like stall biting etc.
