A common question I get asked is “What should we vaccinate our
pigs for and when should we do it? “
Before we get to the vaccine schedule, I’d like to talk about
vaccines and vaccine handling a bit.
I’m going to limit this discussion to vaccines administered by
injection and leave the ones delivered by water out of the
discussion for now. There are basically two
kinds of vaccine we use in pigs today. The first is modified live
virus or MLV and the second are killed.
Vaccines themselves
The most common MLV is probably PRRS vaccine. It comes with two
bottles one contains the dried modified live virus and the other
a diluent to rehydrate it. Because these vaccines are live they
must be administered quickly after rehydration and you need to
avoid exposing it to disinfectants in your syringe. When you
administer this to a pig the virus replicates just like an
natural infection and the pig develops immunity just like it
would to a natural infection. Because the virus is modified it
doesn’t actually make the pig sick. PRRS vaccines are all live
because in order to be effective they have to stimulate what is
called cell mediated immunity. The only way we know how to get
cell mediated immunity is with an MLV or natural infection. That
is why all the killed PRRS vaccines are useless and the companies
that marketed them commercially have all discontinued.
Killed vaccines are a little more complicated. Because the
viruses or bacteria do not replicate the vaccine has to stimulate
the immune system in other ways to get an immune
response. So in addition to the antigen itself
the vaccine contains a carrier and an adjuvant. The adjuvant
stimulates the immune system to process the antigen and develop
immunity. Killed vaccines also tend to contain fairly large
amounts of the antigen itself which also stimulates the immune
system. It is because of the carriers and the
adjuvants that mixing killed vaccines together is not a good
idea. You can either limit the ability of the immune system to
process one or more of the antigens or the “overdose” of
adjuvants and different carriers will greatly increase the chance
of bad reactions which may even kill pigs. That said there are a few
vaccines that are labeled to be mixed together. A specific example of
vaccines that can be mixed are BI's Mycoflex and Circoflex.
Vaccine Handling
Everything you need to know about vaccine handling you already
know if you know how to handle beer. The cardinal rule is don’t
do anything to a vaccine that you would not do to your beer.
Here are a few examples.
You know that letting beer sit in the sun makes it go bad so
protect your vaccines from light as well.
Just like some beer vaccines may be better at
room temperature so letting a vaccine get to room temperature before you
use it can help reduce vaccine reactions.
You wouldn’t mix Sam Adams and Budweiser together before you
drank them so why would you mix vaccines?
You wouldn’t open a beer, drink half of it, and then let the
other half sit in the frig for a month before you finish it so
don’t do that with your vaccine either.
Vaccination Schedules
Pigs:
There are 6 essential vaccines every show pig should receive either before they are sold or shortly after receiving in the show barn.
Viral: PRRS, Influenza, and circovirus
Bacterial: Erysipelas, mycoplasma, ileitis
Influenza needs to be administered after the pigs are 9-10 weeks old so the maternal immunity has waned.