Pig Health is an easy-to-read and informative guide for those starting out in swine practice and for experienced practitioners alike. It is a comprehensive book that focuses on the ethos of health maintenance rather than disease management. Swine health issues are approached through a holistic perspective through environmental health as well as specific disease management. Pig Health begins with a chapter on clinical examination before focusing on different body systems and diseases. The book also includes chapters on environmental maintenance (focusing on pig housing and equipment), as well as a chapter on pig health maintenance, which focuses on biosecurity and farm production systems and organization.
Pig Health is a good resource for several reasons. It is not as wordy as some academic-type textbooks, which is a relief! Pig Health is engaging to flip through as it is full of images and references to videos. The quality of the images is generally good, but there are some images that are grainier and harder to interpret than others. There are links to videos available online in the Additional Resource section on the CRC press webpage for Pig Health. The videos, however, are not annotated as they were typically snippets of video captured on real farms. The videos are helpful in the sense that they show real scenarios, but occasionally I yearned for an explanation, either written or oral, to accompany the video. What I found particularly useful for each disease was the inclusion of a “differential diagnosis” section. Instead of flipping through a multitude of diseases to determine differentials — Pig Health conveniently lists them for each specific disease.
All in all, Pig Health appears to be a useful inclusion to a veterinary bookshelf for those working with swine. Please note that my review is not from the perspective of a swine practitioner, but rather as a veterinarian who was exposed to swine through mixed animal practice as well as personal experience (my family owns and operates a pig farm).