Project Title:  Sampling of adult boars during early infection using a new serum collection technique for PRRS PCR testing prior to semen collection.

Institution:  Swine Vet Center, P.A.

Outcome/Results:  The blood swab method is a less stressful approach to testing boars for PRRSV.

This study evaluated the feasibility of using a new approach for blood collection in boars called the blood swab method.  The blood swab method involves puncturing a vein (usually in the ear) with a needle and swabbing the blood with a polyester swab.  The swab is then put into saline solution and tested by PCR.  The blood swab method can be done on boars each collection day, thus is user-friendly when compared with snaring and collection of blood from the neck.  The blood swab samples detected virus earlier and had more virus quantity than semen or mouth swab samples, so finding virus in pooled samples would be much more likely.  This study verifies results of prior work by this author which suggested that semen PCR was not effective at detecting virus from boars during the first 6 days after infection.  Blood swab sampling should replace semen sampling for boar studs.