The manager of producer services with Sask Pork reports audits of truck wash facilities in Saskatchewan are showing they're doing a better than expected job of cleaning and disinfecting the trucks and trailers that move hogs.
To help reduce the risk of spreading Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea provincial pork organizations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Canadian Pork Council and a team of western Canadian veterinarianshave rolled out the Canadian Truck Wash Facility Registration Pilot Project.
Any truck wash facility on the prairies that deals with swine livestock trailers is eligible to participate.
Harvey Wagner, the manager of producer services with Sask Pork, says so far five of the higher volume higher risk truck washes have been audited.
Harvey Wagner-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
Basically we're finding that the truck washes that we've gone to are, in the main, doing a very good job.
Some of them are doing a much better job than you'd almost expect because a lot of the truck washes that are used to do hog trucks now weren't really originally designed for that.
They are more designed to wash the outside of a truck, like a grain liner or something like that.
The people that are working there under difficult conditions are doing a surprisingly good job.
It's not perfect but a lot of it is just that they're not thinking about all the steps.
When we put this program together we had a really good team of veterinarians and other technical people to think about all of the things that are important when you're looking at truck washes.
So when you get that high level of expertise applied to it you can figure out what needs to be done, and when you see the reality sometimes it's not perfect, although, sometimes people will do amazing things with what they have.
Wagner says the project is scheduled to continue to the end of March at which point audit results will be analyzed and a report will be compiled for release by late spring or early summer.
Source: Farmscape