Savvy pork producers can take the proactive step of protecting sows and their piglets from clostridial disease by feeding BMD to sows from 2 weeks before farrowing through lactation. This practice has been shown to dramatically improve the growth, efficiency, and health of pigs:
- reduced the severity of piglet diarrhea by 41%;
- lowered pre-weaning mortality from 23% down to 2%;
- raised piglet weaning weights 1 lb.

But that's not all. Even invisible, subclinical clostridial enteritis can critically erode the reproductive performance of sows and growth performance of piglets. In herds lacking clinical signs, BMD still generated huge benefits:
- reduced pre-weaning mortality 26%;
- improved weaning weights 0.6 lb;
- boosted the number of pigs weaned by 0.2 piglets/litter;
- reduced sow weight loss during lactation by 10 lb.

Clearly, BMD represents a powerful management tool that can help optimize your productivity.

Clostridial infections are caused by gram-positive bacteria that are commonly isolated from swine, including Clostridium perfringens (types A and C), C. novyi, and C. difficile.

Necrotic enteritis is the most common clostridial disease, which results from an infection of C. perfringens, usually in piglets less than 1 week of age. Oral transmission of the bacteria can occur between piglets, via sow feces, or by pen and housing materials. Once ingested, organisms rapidly reproduce in the gut of a pig, attaching to intestinal walls.

When C. perfringens type C is the cause of disease, bacteria produce a characteristic necrotizing beta toxin in the intestines that can kill infected piglets. Clinical signs vary depending on how long a piglet survives. Piglets may appear normal for the first 10 hours but then suddenly die within 12 to 36 hours after birth, with development of bloody diarrhea. In acute cases, piglets usually survive for only about 2 to 3 days after onset of reddish-brown feces with gray necrotic debris. Still, other pigs may have continuing non-bloody diarrhea and die at 5 to 7 days of age, while a chronic form of the disease can last for over a week, characterized by intermittent diarrhea, yellow-gray feces, a slowing growth rate, and eventual death of the pig.

In recent years, disease outbreaks have been linked more often to C. perfringens type A, microbes that do not secrete the lethal beta toxin released by type C but instead produce alpha toxins that cause necrosis in the intestines. Like type C, type A infections occur within hours after birth, but infected piglets have a pasty diarrhea for about 5 days and then recover. However, piglets will often be in poor condition, causing economic losses from decreased rates of weight gain and poor feed efficiency.

Other dangerous Clostridium organisms include C. novyi and C. difficile. Numerous reports of sudden death in sows have been associated with C. novyi. In contrast, Clostridium difficile has recently emerged as a pathogen capable of producing significant harm to the intestines of piglets. Clostridium difficile is a normal inhabitant of the intestinal tract, but it is an opportunist and came trigger disease if normal conditions in the gut are disrupted.

Prevention is the best control strategy for clostridial disease because often very little can be done once clinical signs are observed. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that BMD® (fed to sows at 250 g/ton from 2 weeks pre-farrowing through lactation) provides excellent, unsurpassed control of piglet clostridial enteritis. In addition, several studies have further suggested that bacitracin in the sow diet can control C. novyi-related sow mortality.