Swine Health Blackbelt #17 Rotavirus ice cubes - efficacy and methods by Dr. Seth Melson

Rotavirus, without an effective commercial vaccine solution, continues to be a problem for the swine industry. Numerous methods have been tested to help develop immunity in piglets, one of which involves feeding rotavirus frozen into ice cubes to sows so that they will develop antibodies to the virus and pass those antibodies to her piglets through colostrum. In this episode, I talk with Seth Melson about his survey results evaluating industry standards for making these Rotacubes and his thoughts on what steps need to be taken to improve their effectiveness.

Meet the guest: 

Seth Melson is a 4th-year Veterinary student at the University of Minnesota. He was first introduced to pigs while growing up on a wean-to-finish farm in southern Minnesota. He received his B.S. from UMN in 2019 before joining the veterinary program. Besides his family farm experiences, he worked at Pipestone and Swine Vet Center in the summer of 2020 and 2021 respectively.