Health & Welfare Monitoring
With over 60 years’ experience in maintaining a high health pyramid Rattlerow recognises the importance of running a secure Veterinary Health and Welfare Programme on all its nucleus and multiplications farms and AI studs.
Health programme
The Rattlerow health programme focuses on strict biosecurity procedures combined with health monitoring and health matching protocols. The programme has been designed to ensure consistently high standards of health are maintained throughout the Rattlerow pyramid and to provide this assurance to our customers.
Our chief veterinary consultant is Alasdair Macleod MRCVS who, aided by a number of additional key professional veterinarians, is responsible for supervision of the Rattlerow Health Monitoring Scheme. In the event of a potential purchase the company veterinarian will consult directly with the customers’ private veterinarian in an open health matching exercise. This will ensure that integration of stock is done in a biosecure and efficient manner.
The Rattlerow Health and Welfare programme comprises of quarterly compulsory farm inspections combined with regular abattoir surveys, serological and post mortem results. Together this information gives a continuous and documented profile of the health status of each herd. If a unit should fail to meet the standards required or should succumb to a condition then supply would immediately be suspended pending further investigation.
All herds are monitored to establish their health status with reference to the following diseases:
- PRRS
- PMWS/PDNS
- Mycoplasma pneumonia
- Actinobacillus Pleuropneumonia
- Streptococcus suis type 2
- Swine Dysentery
- Atrophic Rhinitis
- Enteric viruses
- Swine influenza
Further testing
In addition to these regular clinical and serological examinations numerous serology tests are performed for a wide selection of diseases as requested by importing countries purchasing large groups of breeding stock often from outside the EU.
Each supply unit is a member of the Rattlerow genetic pyramid of DEFRA approved sources and is assessed regularly by DEFRA veterinary officers to confirm their continuous high standards of biosecurity.
To ensure our continued commitments to maintaining the highest standards of animal welfare all Rattlerow herds are independently inspected by Genesis and a number of sites are registered under Freedom Foods.
Rattlerow AI stations are approved under the European Communities Regulations which specify the isolation procedures and health testing required for intracommunity trade. In addition to DEFRA inspections each site is supervised by a centre veterinarian responsible for weekly inspections and all routine health testing and monitoring of the stud.
