Now there’s more you can do to prevent the flu

Mar 06, 2018

Ingelvac Provenza^TM is a new vaccine offering protection against influenza in swine

By Kate Ayers
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Ingelvac Provenza^TM is a new treatment option on the market allowing American producers to vaccinate pigs as young as one day old against the damaging influenza A virus in swine (IAV-S).

This new product is the first live attenuated influenza vaccine (a vaccine created by reducing the virulence of a pathogen but still keeping it viable) for growing pigs. The vaccine provides protection before pigs are most vulnerable, according to a Boehringer Ingelheim release yesterday.

“It is administered to piglets as young as a day old, which stimulates immunity before weaning when pigs can be exposed to influenza virus as they are moved and comingled,” Dr. Christa Goodell, DVM and technical manager for the Boehringer Ingelheim U.S. Swine Business, said to Farms.com in an email statement today.

“These elements help to protect against multiple strains of influenza (and) reduce viral shedding, which reduces transmission and the impact of IAV-S across the entire swine population.”

The vaccine can be administered intranasally, providing direct protection at the common site of IAV-S infection, the release said.

The vaccine “has demonstrated cross-protection against relevant circulating IAV-S strains … and has been evaluated for administration in the face of maternal antibodies,” Goodell said.

“All these (factors) can help decrease the burden of the disease in a swine operation.”

IAV-S can have a significant impact on swine operations by reducing productivity and profitability.

“Studies have shown that uncomplicated IAV-S infections can lead to an estimated loss of more than US$3 per pig. When IAV-S is present with concurrent infections, the loss can be greater than US$10 per pig,” Del Birkhofer, head of the U.S. Swine Business and Newport Laboratories, said in the release.

Boehringer Ingelheim developed and sells the product.

More information on Ingelvac Provenza^TM can be found here.

Updated March 7, 2018

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.