NGFF Provides $60K to Study Pig Virus

May 12, 2014

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

New money has come into the fold to study the deadly pig disease known as Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDV), which has infected thousands of pig farms in the United States.

The National Grain Feed Foundation (NGFF) has pledged $60,000 to the National Pork Board (NPB) to assist with their efforts to study the virus. NGFA says that it is committed to supporting research that will help deal with the presence of PEDV in the United States.

NPB has been focusing much of its efforts on studying feed-related concerns thought to be linked to PEDV. The funding will support NPB’s ongoing efforts to identify ways to slow the spread of the disease, with the ultimate goal of preventing the disease from occurring again in the future.

Most of the funding that NPB has received to date comes from the Pork Checkoff (producer) dollars. NPB says it welcomes the additional funding, adding that they plan to continue and work with the industry on this matter.

The top priorities for the research funding dollars include:

• Study the potential for PED (and other diseases) to occur in pig feed
• Examine contamination risks (at all levels of the supply chain)
• Continue to at look risks associated with feed systems

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.