Swine Ileitis

Also called Porcine Proliferative Enteropathy (PPE), ileitis is an infectious enteric disease. Its prevalence has getting very high in Europe and in Asia, reaching over 90% of the farms. The disease is characterized by thickening of the mucosa of the intestine due to hyperplasia of the crypt enterocytes and happens with the contamination of Lawsonia intracellularis. Once in the digestive tract, bacteria are able to overpass the stomach acidity to colonize the intestine. The damages are mostly happening in the Ileum, where inflammation of the enterocytes causes immature epithelium development. This results in a nutrient absorption reduction, leading to a heavy negative impact on the swine growth (up to -40% on the feed converting ratio).

Due to ileitis, mortality is observed to reach up to 5% in case of severe contamination, especially when pens are clean with a contamination happening at the late fattening stage (>80kg). Then pigs might not have set up its immunity to Lawsonia at the earlier stages inducing important deficiency in the body. The losses can reach up to 20$/pig for each infected pig in the flock.

On the other hand, in farm having heavy pathogenic pressure, contamination is more likely to happens on piglets and young growers, and so the growth performances are impacted on the whole fattening period even if mortality can stay reasonable. This is why, in both cases, ileitis is costly. A loss of 0,5pts on the FCR would induce an increase of the feed consumption by 45kg/pig.

Swine Dysentery

Often being confused with Ileitis, the Swine Dysentery (SD), also known to be one of the major diseases in swine farm. Caused by Brachyspira hyodysenteriae and Brachyspira pilosicoli. Like Ileitis, contamination is known to be done orally and spread to the environment via the infected feces. The SD range from mild, mucous diarrhea with unaltered general condition to severe hemorrhagic diarrhea. Heavily infected pigs are condemned to stay infected, conducting to high mortality rate, reaching 50 to 90%.

Preventive strategy is the best solution to control the disease. This is why a strong biosecurity and closed pens are essential to avoid the spreading of the disease. In addition, managing intestinal microbiota in a way to lower pathogenic bacteria loud (LI and BH) could help to control the disease.

NSOAB9^®

To prevent Swine Dysentery and Ileitis, Nor-feed has specifically designed a product called NSOAB9^® based on plant extract and standardized on selected saponins and flavonoids permitting the modulation of the gut microbiota. The efficacy of NSOAB9^® has been proven via a RT-PCR test, showing a reduction of the targeted pathogens by 90% after 56 days (Figure).

Used preventively in farms with high risk of Ileitis and or Swine Dysentery, NSOAB9^® has shown its capacity to maintain good performances in degraded sanitary conditions.

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Article made possible through the contribution of Nor-Feed

Improving ileitis and swine dysentery management