7 nutritional strategies to fight edema disease

Edema disease remains a complicated disorder that perplexes nutritionists and veterinarians today as it did more than 10 years ago, when I wrote my first article on the topic. Given a recent outbreak of edema disease in a client’s farm, I had to revisit this topic and update my knowledge. Today, as it was back then, nutrition can play a dual role in either preventing the occurrence or alleviating the symptoms of the disease once it happens. In my experience, prevention works best.

Edema disease remains a complicated gastrointestinal disorder affecting millions of piglets each year worldwide. Major symptoms include disorders of the nervous system, puffy eyelids, sometimes diarrhea, lameness, loss of appetite, depressed performance, unthrifty overall condition and elevated mortality. Lamentably, it is often the best, fastest-growing piglets that die, and this causes major distress on any affected farm.