![]() “It is not the scourge of 2011 for pigdom. “It leaves the door open to define more clearly the preweaning factors, some related to sows, which may be involved in this syndrome.”īefore describing the clinical signs and progression of the disease, Henry was compelled to point out what PFTS is not. “Periweaning suggests there may be some preweaning factors, or maybe even some gestational factors, that increase the pig’s risk of developing this clinical entity,” he adds. “The part of the definition that is more likely to be controversial is our choice of ‘peri’ (meaning around, about or through) weaning as opposed to postweaning. We’re trying to leave the impression that most pigs in the nursery get on to feed and eat and grow well,” Harding explains. “The new name - periweaning failure to thrive syndrome - initially describes failure to thrive. Stepping to the microphone, Harding explains how PFTS was established as the working description of the syndrome. The clinical definition of PFTS is: “A pig on a farm with no obvious clinical diseases in suckling pigs, being representative of a larger group of clinically normal pigs that are afibrile, with normal behavior and body condition at weaning and initially lacking evidence of respiratory, systemic and enteric diseases, and within seven days of weaning is not eating, is depressed, may show signs of chewing or chomping behavior and becomes progressively debilitated within 2-3 weeks of weaning,” Henry explains. In a special presentation during the Leman Swine Conference in mid-September, two members of the Swine Health Management section of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP), Henry and John Harding, DVM, with the University of Saskatchewan, provided an update on PFTS that included a clinical definition, and explained the course of the catabolic disease in newly weaned pigs. By consensus, they christened the baffling disease “periweaning failure to thrive syndrome” (PFTS), which in everyday vernacular has become “P-fits.” A group of those stakeholders - predominantly veterinarians, diagnosticians and researchers - met during the International Pig Veterinary Society Congress in Vancouver, BC in July. In less scientific terms, Henry says these pigs simply “fail to thrive.”Īs stakeholders in the pork industry are wont to do, a campaign was launched to come up with a proper name for this condition and, as often as not, a universal acronym that would be widely accepted among producers and veterinarians. In the end, the pig dies or is humanely euthanized because of its serious debility. One such topic is the newly weaned pig that inexplicably loses its appetite, fails to eat, then descends into a series of catabolic events that depletes its body reserves. ![]() Lacking notoriety, they become an “orphan topic,” which no one wants to talk about nonetheless, they’re still there, notes veteran swine practitioner Steve Henry from the Abilene (KS) Veterinary Clinic. Not all pig maladies fall neatly into a category of diseases, syndromes or conditions.
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