Samantha Hernandez, product development scientist with Arm & Hammer Animal and Food Production, recently spoke to The Pig Site’s Sarah Mikesell at the Leman Swine Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

“We did a commercial study last year and looked at Streptococcus suis (S. suis) levels within sow herds and also within her piglets,” said Hernandez.

The purpose of the study was to determine the level of S. suis in sow herds before and after the implementation of Certillus, a S. suis targeted microbial solution, to evaluate its efficacy against S. suis populations. The study was conducted on three farms:

• Farm A: high performing farm that didn't have S. suis levels
• Farm B: was considered “intermediate,” meaning it had S. suis levels, but it also had high performing piglets
• Farm C: farm struggling with S. suis problems

The first two farms were kept on a basal diet to monitor pathogens. Certillus was implemented on Farm C which was struggling with S. suis.

“Then we went back and sampled again to see how those levels would decrease after being on product,” she explained. “What we found was that the pathogen load did decrease after being implemented with our Certillus product.”

Value to producers

“This could really help the sow - cleaning her up - and then clean up her piglets as well,” she said. “We only implemented the Certillus into the sow diet, but we actually saw decreases in S. suis levels within the nursery as well.”

The study also considered if Certillus could stop the transfer of pathogens from sow to piglet.

“One of the things that we found was that we can [stop the sow-piglet transfer of pathogens], and we can reduce that pathogenicity going into the nursery as well,” said Hernandez. “When we looked at the microbiota of the sows themselves, we saw shifts in the microbiota, not only rectally where the product goes through the system, but we also saw a shift in the microbiota of the vagina as well.”

Thus, implementing Certillus into the sow’s diet helped to reduce S. suis levels in the vagina, so the sow did not transfer it to the piglets through birth.

“That was one of the things we were trying to do because we know S. suis lives within the nasal cavity,” she explained. “So, one of the thoughts was that if the sow was passing S. suis levels to her piglets during the birthing process, cleaning up the S. suis levels within the vagina would also decrease the levels found in the piglets.”

In vaginal samples, the targeted microbial solution decreased the relative abundance of S. suis from 18% to 2% (p<0.01). The results indicate that sows placed on a Certillus targeted microbial solution had reduced prevalence and lower levels of S. suis which would lower the chances of her transferring potentially pathogenic S. suis to her offspring.