Certain barns that switched to antibiotic-free production observed increased prevalence of pathogens after a few years on the program. Developing improved sanitization and disinfection procedures is an important step to reduce the pathogen load in antibiotic-free barns, which was the goal of this study.
This project identified and screened various disinfection strategies comprised of conventional and non-conventional disinfection measures. The screening phase determined calcium oxide, peracetic acid (PAA), quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), electrolyzed water (Slightly-acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) and Alkaline electrolyzed water (AEW)), and silver nanoparticles as the most promising alternative measures. During laboratory-scale evaluations, the application of SAEW and PAA were identified as the most promising disinfection strategies, which were investigated further in in-barn tests.
The performance of PAA and SAEW was comparable to conventional disinfectants (Virkon) and showed longer effectivity than Virkon at 4 to 24 hours after its application. Economic analysis showed that SAEW reduces the overall cost of disinfectant used per pig while PAA costs a bit more than conventional disinfectants. This study indicates that SAEW and PAA solutions could be a better alternative to conventional disinfectants.
New and alternative sanitization procedures for antibiotic-free swine barns (full article)
