Salmonellosis is a public health concern worldwide and also causes huge losses to the piggery industry. A total of 457 fecal samples were collected from organized and unorganized farms including indigenous and crossbreed piglets of North East India. Salmonella isolates were serotyped, screened for their virulence genes, characterized for drug resistance pattern and representative isolates were cloned and sequenced for their partial length enterotoxin (stn) gene. A total of 8.31% Salmonella were identified with higher prevalence observed in unorganized compared to organized farms and higher detection level in cross breed compared to indigenous piglets. Salmonella typhimurium (65.78%) was found to be the predominant serovar and irrespective of serovars high number of isolates (68.4%) harboured enterotoxin gene. The isolates were multidrug resistant showing highest resistance against cefalexin (77.31%). Sequence analysis of stn gene showed two isolates having diverse sequence compared to other isolates. Our study revealed the significance of Salmonella as important pathogen with zoonotic potential between porcine and human populations. This is probably the first systematic study of Salmonella species associated with piglet diarrhea in India.

Prolonged exposure to stress may cause adverse effects on animal physiology. It is especially important during the gestation period as female physiology can affect the unborn offspring in the form of prenatal stress. Intensive pig farming industry developed gestation crates that enable to keep sows during gestation period in small stalls which do not allow animals to move freely for a maximum of 4 weeks after successful insemination (Council Directive 2008/120/EC). Although these crates have production advantages, many health and welfare issues have been raised recently. In this study we tested to what extent the lack of movement of sows kept in the gestation crates had an impact on some blood and saliva constituents of new-born piglets. In total, the samples were collected from 80 piglets when they were 3, 7 and 21 days of age and tested for cortisol levels in blood and saliva, acute phase proteins (amyloid A, C-reactive protein, haptoglobin) and lymphocytes proliferation index (in response to ConA, PHA and PWM). 40 piglets were from sows kept in free movement housing (FM group) from day 1 to day 100 of pregnancy and forty piglets were from sows in the movement restriction group (MR), in which the sows were kept in crates just allowing them to stand up and lie down from day 1 to day 100 of the pregnancy (research was conducted before the implementation Directive 2008/120/EC i.e. January 1,2013). The results of the study showed that the piglets delivered by sows kept under movement restriction conditions exhibited higher cortisol and acute phase protein levels as well as a lower lymphocytes proliferation index. This suggests that lack of movement in sows during the gestation period influences piglets’ physiology and indicates that the piglets are suffering from prenatal stress caused by insufficient housing conditions of their mothers potentially leading to poor health and welfare of their offspring.