As swine flu fears spread, ag programs protect their pigs

The news is not good for pigs these days. They’ve gotten a bad -- and apparently undeserved -- global rap as the cause of the so-called swine flu. The Egyptians want to kill them all. And as if that weren’t enough to make them wallow in the mud, sick people can make them sick.

That’s why as news reports of the flu intensified, administrators at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo sprang into action. They called an emergency meeting one morning -- and by afternoon, signs went up on the roadways leading to the pig barns. Their gist: Sick people, back away from our pigs:

“In order to protect our animals from possible exposure to swine influenza,” the new signs declare, “access is limited to only healthy students and personnel.”

“The general population needs to know animals are infected just like humans -- and a lot of times the humans carry the disease to animals,” said Andrew Thulin, head of the animal science department.

The Cal Poly pigs are popular, and joggers and parents with children like to stop by the fencing near the open side of one barn, where the curious animals come over for pats from strangers.

“Our animals are high health, they’re very clean, and they’re very susceptible to disease,” Thulin explained.

Other agricultural and animal programs in California schools are being extra vigilant about their swine herds.

“I had a news team that wanted to show up at our swine unit and film with pigs all around,” said Edward Fonda, professor in the animal and veterinary sciences department at Cal Poly Pomona. “I said no. It’s too much of a risk. I don’t know where they’ve been. I don’t know where their equipment has been. Maybe if it had been any other time, I would have said yes.”

Schools with agricultural and animal programs pride themselves on pristinely healthy animal stocks, which they use for teaching, research and public outreach. Most say they don’t have to ramp up their health-safety procedures because they already keep their pigs in a near-cocoon of biosecurity, taking many precautions whether they have a herd of 300, as at UC Davis, or just one -- Oliver -- at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. The 150-pound pot-bellied pig is the, well, guinea pig for Pierce’s aspiring vets and vet techs, who are learning to take animal temperature, pulse and respiration rates.

“If we have someone with the flu, we’re not going to allow them anywhere near Oliver,” said Leland Shapiro, director of the pre-veterinary program at Pierce. “We don’t want anyone who’s sick around any of our animals. We don’t allow people to smoke around our animals.”

Many animal science departments routinely ban from their barns visitors who have been out of the country in recent weeks, or who have been near other swine and food animals in recent days. Students wipe the soles of their shoes in a liquid disinfectant before entering the animal areas and sometimes don special boots and clothing.

“You can’t wear clothes, especially shoes, that have been around livestock,” said Kent Parker, the swine facility manager at UC Davis. “They disinfect their hands before and after leaving.”

At Davis, the pigs live in covered barns with low walls that open to the air. They don’t have free outside access -- to prevent exposure to birds. And they’re monitored and vaccinated for 15 pig-ravaging illnesses.

Much of the protocol is aimed at safeguarding healthy herds from exposure to illnesses or bacteria that people track in from contact with sick animals elsewhere. But ill students are usually banned from barns as well. Various influenza viruses can go from people to pigs, which have digestive and circulatory systems similar to those of humans.

It’s unclear yet, say animal managers, how likely it is for this new hybrid to go from a human to a pig.

Still, “the pigs are more at risk for picking it up from humans than the humans are from pigs,” said Fonda of Cal Poly Pomona, which is limiting visitors to the facilities where 30 sows are kept. “We’d be very concerned about international visitors.”

But public outreach goes on. This is prime visiting season at Animal Acres, a rescued farm animal sanctuary in Acton and home to 11 pigs fond of belly rubs. “We want people to interact with the farm animals,” said founder Lorri Houston. “Some of our pigs are our best ambassadors.”

No one who works professionally with pigs, by the way, calls this dreaded flu by its porcine handle. “I try to call it H1N1,” said Parker of UC Davis, who notes the hybrid virus contains pig as well as bird DNA.

“I try not to call it the swine flu because I don’t think it does justice to the pigs.”

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carla.hall@latimes.com