Veterinary Consultancy Services

We are committed to continually strive to provide the best technical advice in the industry to improve and maintain the health of our clients pigs.

Our Head Office is in Bendigo, Victoria with another office in Toowoomba, Queensland. Our veterinarians service piggeries in all states of Australia as well as South East Asia. Our business has eleven pig veterinarians to ensure that our clients receive the best advice in pig health and production.

Some of the veterinary consultancy services we perform are below.

Disease Investigations

Chris Richards & Associates have extensive knowledge and tools to investigate acute and chronic disease problems.

Using the best diagnostic techniques and laboratories available in the industry, we pride ourselves on being able to provide rapid, thorough, accurate results to our clients.

Routine Herd Health Visits

Routine herd visits are essential for surveillence of diseases. Prevention of diseases forms the majority of the programs that are implemented and discussed during a visit.

Herd health visits complement other services such as slaughter checks, where subclinical and clinical observations can be correlated.

During visits, a revision is made of the vaccination and medication programs, pig husbandry and welfare, as well as evaluation of production performance. Systems are reviewed or implemented to prevent or manage disease issues to reduce cost of production and to assist in optimising production.

Staff training is an important part of a visit and can be implemented in all areas of pig health and production. APL training packages such as ProHand and APIQ Program can also be performed.

Herd Health Visits for an important part of the Partnership Program.

Slaughter Checks

Abattoir Monitoring of pigs is essential for surveillnce of disease and to monitor subclinical signs of disease. Results must be correlated with other tools such as production records, post mortems on farm, clinical signs and observations on farm. This information can be used to revise vaccination, medication and production practices.

A detailed report (see left) is given on each slaughter check, with comparisons to previous checks. recomendations are then given based upon observations, pathology testing and on farm evaluation.

Unlike similar services offered by others, this service is performed by pig veterinarians who have an understanding of all the health and production issues relating to your specific farm and pigs.

Abattoir monitoring is included in the Partnership Program.

Disease Eradication

Chris Richards & Associates have implemented successful eradication programs for Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, sarcoptic mange and Swine dysentry on both intensive and outdoor units ranging from 100 to 1300 sows.

We have also been involved in total depopulation programs for these pathogens and Actinobacillus pleuropneumonae.

We work closely with a number of contract growers to ensure available housing for grower pigs during the depopulation program.

Partial budgets can be prepared for producers contemplating an eradication program.

A production plan including re-stocking and gilt introductions, biosecurity and marketing strategies for depopulations also form part of the disease eradication services.

Biosecurity Plans

Maintaining a high health status is essential to ensure that a piggery is a financially sustainable long term enterprise. A biosecurity program in a piggery is essential to maintain this high health status.

Chris Richards & Associates have developed biosecurity systems for many producers. Areas examined include introduction of new stock, physical barriers, personal barriers, evaluation of the risk of various pathogens, auditing of the biosecurity system, and maintenace of the system.

We provide a number of Operating Procedures, Declarations and Pig, Transport, and People Logs to complement the program.

Dr Hugo Dunlop has been a leader in the development of biosecurity programs and has written a chapter in "Eradicating Diseases of Pigs" (PRDC, 2002) on Biosecurity.

Related Resources

APL Biosecurity Program

Approved Medication Lists

Approved medication List and Treatment Guides are essential to ensure appropriate use of medication and vaccination on the piggery. The AML describes in detail how to treat individual pigs and herd disease prevention and control programs.

The Approved Drug List is an essential requirement of the Australian Pig Industry Quality Program.

Your AML can be provided in a format that has products approved for use for a specific disease, or in a format that lists the diseases which can be treated with a specific product.