The monitoring or diagnosis of pig herd diseases requires the collection of clinical samples for laboratory testing. Clinical samples include disease material, swabs, oral fluid, blood, serum, etc. Due to the current epidemic situation, some of the original methods of collecting clinical samples are no longer applicable, such as: the collection of disease material involves dissection, and the dissection process is easy to cause pollution of the pig farm environment and personnel, which in turn affects the production of the whole pig herd. Swab type and oral fluid samples have become the preferred sampling method for the majority of farmers or group farms due to the advantages of easy collection, operability and less stress to the pig herd.

Nasal swabs, oral swabs, anal swabs and blood swabs are common swab type samples generally used for disease diagnosis in individual pigs, while oral fluid samples are commonly used to assess the herd health of pigs. Each farm can choose the sampling method to meet the clinical production situation for different stages of growing pig herd, different monitoring purposes, different unexpected situations, etc. For example, anal swab and oral fluid can be used for boar herd; nasal swab, oral swab, anal swab and blood swab can be used for sow herd at different stages; nasal swab, oral swab, anal swab and blood swab can be used for lactating piglet herd; oral swab can be used for nursing pig herd and growing fattening pig herd Oral fluid can be selected for group assessment.

In order to let farmers have a more systematic and intuitive understanding of the sampling methods of swabs and oral fluids, this paper introduces the sampling tutorials of common swabs and oral fluids in pig herds with reference to relevant literature reports and the actual clinical situation.

I. Nasal swab sampling tutorial

Step 1: Prepare nasal swab sampling materials: preservation buffer, sealing tape, disposable syringe, disposable sterile swab, and marker.

Step 2: Hold the pig, insert the sterile cotton swab deeply into the nasal cavity of the pig, rotate it three times, put the swab into the preservation tube and record the information of the pig.

Step 3: Inject 2ml of swab preservation buffer with a sterile syringe, seal it, place it vertically, store it under refrigeration and send it for examination as soon as possible within 48h.

Nasal swab sampling video

B. Oral swab sampling tutorial

Step 1, prepare oral swab sampling materials: preservation buffer, sealing tape, disposable syringe, disposable sterile swab, marker.

Step 2: Preserve the pig, insert the sterile cotton swab into the root of the tongue, let the pig chew for 5 seconds, remove, put the swab into the preservation tube and record the information of the pig.

Step 3: Inject 2ml of swab preservation buffer with a sterile syringe, seal, place vertically, keep refrigerated and send for examination as soon as possible within 48h.

Oral swab sampling video

Three, anal swab sampling tutorial

Step 1, prepare anal swab sampling materials: preservation buffer, sealing tape, disposable syringe, disposable sterile swab, marker.

Step 2: Hold the pig, insert the sterile cotton swab into the pig's anus, slowly rotate and withdraw, put the swab into the preservation tube and record the information of the pig.

Step 3: Inject 2ml of swab preservation buffer with sterile syringe, seal, place vertically, keep refrigerated and send for examination as soon as possible within 48h.