Early detection and treatment leads to consistent and long-term favourable economic impact

SoundTalks® (ST) is an audio-based technology that continuously identifies and quantifies respiratory problems in pigs, generating alerts (yellow warnings, red alarms) when respiratory outbreak onset is detected. These alerts have enabled triggering earlier caregiver awareness than caregiver observations alone (Polson et al., 2018). However, further research is needed to quantify the economic impact of this technology. The objective of this study was to evaluate the post-detection-plus-intervention performance and economic differences resulting from earlier detection of the onset of a clinically detectable respiratory disease episode measured by SoundTalks immediately followed by optimal intervention.

There were three SoundTalks® monitor devices per room (airspace), with one ST monitor device covering each of three zones per room. Pigs used for this study were sourced from a PRRS virus negative and Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae negative breeding herd. All study pigs were vaccinated with a porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) and Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae vaccine at weaning (three weeks of age). Eleven week old pigs (n = 1655) were allocated to 72 pens targeting 23 pigs per pen across two rooms. There were three study groups, defined as: SoundTalks® (ST) alert day zero (G0), day 5 (G5) and day 10 (G10). Of the 23 pigs per pen, three (13%) were designated as seeder pigs and directly challenged at 12 weeks of age with virulent wild-type Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, then challenged seven days later with a virulent wild-type PRRS virus. Alert day 0 was the first day a SoundTalks yellow/red alert occurred post-challenge. All pigs received the same treatment protocol, differentiated only by the date the treatment protocol was started.

Contact challenged pigs from G0 had 12.7 and 20.4 grams higher ADG compared to those from G5 and G10 respectively. Similarly, pigs from G0 had a 23.4% and 10.1% decrease in individual treatments compared to G5 and G10. Mortality in G0 pigs was 0.26% higher than G5 but 1.22% lower than G10. All production variables were introduced into the SEI model. Based on a CTO of USD $0.254/pig marketed, the mean monthly Benefit:Cost ratio was 6.49 (range 3.89 to 11.28). The B:C Ratio (G0 vs G5) exceeded 2:1 for 100% of months and exceeded 4:1 for 99.4% of months. For a smaller 1200 head barn with CTO $0.303/pig, mean monthly B:C ratio was 5.45 (range 3.27 to 9.47).

The results of this study and the standardized economic analysis suggest that there can be a consistent and long-term favorable economic impact using a technology that enables earlier detection and treatment intervention. Evaluating benefit:cost using actual historical pig/pork market prices and feed input costs rather than artificial combinations allows a more realistic assessment of financial impact. Future development of the SEI method will include forecasting based on futures contracts for pork and feed, and the ability to generate stochastic output distributions and confidence limits around future projections.