Alert issued for missing Maryland pigs

State veterinarians in Indiana, Ohio, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and New Jersey have been sent a letter containing a warning.

 

“Testing of some of the swine on the farm (and escaped pigs captured just outside the farm) were positive for several diseases of human health importance,” including trichinosis and toxoplasmosis, officials wrote.

 

The disappearance of the 102-pig herd made state officals take its owners (a father and son) to court last week.

 

In April the animals were quarantined after five were tested positive for parasitical trichinosis infection and nine were tested positive to toxoplasmosis. The owners say they do not know where the animals have gone.

 

It is feared they have been taken illegally to slaughter, possibly to be sold as unsafe meat.

 

In the letter Maryland agriculture officials also said that the quarantine was imposed because the farm’s owners were feeding raw garbage and meat

scraps to the swine.