The panel of veterinarians at Banff Pork Seminar gave a terrific overview of the development of circovirus over the past years and the benefit to vaccinating sow or piglets against the disease. Drs. John Harding, Robert Desrosier, Lauren Batista and Brent Jones provided detailed information as to how the disease affects our pigs, the damage it does and its interaction with other diseases. It appears that circovirus has several different genotypes but its mutation level is much slower than PRRS, for example. Hence, it should be better able to be contained with normal vaccination routines. It was highly recommended to consider the 20-step Madec protocol of sanitation and hygiene in all pig barns to mitigate the losses in nursery and finishing.

Roseglen Colony was able to wean 27.3 pigs from each of its 525 sows during 2006. These weaners came from 12.2 live pigs/litter, 11.2 pigs weaned/litter and 2.44 litters/sow. Pigs weaned per lifetime female were 64 pigs because annual prewean mortality is only 8.4% and 5 litters/sow are averaged in the herd.