Clusters of biosecurity in Ontario sow herds and their geographical distribution

Implementing good biosecurity has direct benefits at the herd level since it is critical in reducing the likelihood of introduction and spread of emerging or endemic animal pathogens. In addition, biosecurity standards are increasingly having an impact at the industry level.

Management practices related to biosecurity could be used to define a subpopulation and provide a basis for compartmentalization (1), to assist in the design of risk-based surveillance (2), or as an aid in regional disease control and eradication strategies.

Studying biosecurity, however, is not without challenges. Several approaches and resulting assessments have been previously reported. The aim of this work was to assess biosecurity practices in Ontario sow herds including the determination of best number of biosecurity classes, characteristics of these classes, and their geographical distribution and association with herd density.

Zvonimir Poljak¹ Cate Dewey¹Robert Friendship¹ Rob Deardon² Derald Holtkamp³

1. Department of Population Medicine, OVC, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada;

2. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada;

3. Department of Veterinary Diagnostics and Production Animal Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

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