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Kansas State University Applied Swine Nutrition Team Provides Nursery Diet Options in Response to Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) Virus Concerns

The magnitude of risk that swine feed can be a potential vector for porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus transmission is currently unknown. However, we believe it is prudent for pig producers be knowledgeable of feed ingredients and their potential risk in swine diets. Some swine producers are choosing to take steps to reduce their risk of PED virus being introduced through feed ingredients. These steps have been one or more of the following:

  • Testing porcine products for PED before using in diets and only using after verified as PCR negative for PED virus
  • Replacing porcine based products in diets with bovine products (Ex. bovine plasma to replace porcine plasma)
  • Removing all animal proteins, except milk products, from the diet.

Because the implications of PED virus infection are much greater for sow farms, some producers are choosing to not use any porcine products in creep feed or in gilt multiplication feed while using porcine products tested free of PED virus in off-site nurseries or in wean-to-finish production.

For those entities that use K-State standard nursery pig recommendations, we are providing additional nursery diet options at http://www.ksuswine.org. These options range from removal of all porcine derived feed ingredients to removal of specific protein based ingredients from nursery diets. Other protein sources could be used in addition to the examples provided (i.e. fermented soybean meal, soy protein concentrate, whey protein concentrate, skim milk powder and poultry meal among others). The additional diet options allow for consideration of diets to be used in commercial nurseries and for diets used as creep or on sow farms.

Involving your herd veterinarian, nutrition advisor, feed manufacturer, and ingredient suppliers are important steps in determining the best decisions for you individual operation. We believe that further investigation is urgently needed to define the relative risk of feed or feed ingredients for transmission of PED virus.

For more information please contact: Steve Dritz, (dritz@vet.ksu.edu; Joel DeRouchey (jderouch@ksu.edu; 785-532-2280); 785-532-4202); Bob Goodband (goodband@ksu.edu; 785-532-1228); Mike Tokach (mtokach@ksu.edu; 785-532-2032) or Jason Woodworth (jwoodworth@ksu.edu; 785-532-1157).