Aujeszky's Disease--pork concern

Aujeszky's Disease in pork

This was brought to my attention on another forum and I'm curious as to whether anyone knows about this and/or do they still feed pork?

On the raw forum it seems everyone feeds pork, with no mention of this, which is only killed when the meat is cooked.

Leslie

Only one of a number of reasons I dont do raw pork

http://www.spc.int/rahs/Manual/Multi...AUJESZKYSE.HTM

Susceptible species
Pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus and Sus scrofa scrofa are the main host. Sporadic cases occur in cattle, sheep, goats, horses, dogs, cats, foxes and rodents. There is no transmission to humans.

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Several sites also state that it is highly contagious among the species susceptible to it. I would think that would result in a self limiting risk. That is, any commercial herd affected would have to be promptly dealt with to prevent losing the entire herd.

There are any number of diseases that any animal can become affected with. Why was this brought up in that other forum for special attention?

They were saying that is why they dont' feed raw pork. Now I'm concerned about feeding it to the cats, they've had raw pork 6 times thus far in our feeding (I keep a calendar of what I feed).

Leslie

I feed pork as a regular part of my cats' diet. Even though I've searched, I haven't seen or read of a single, verifiable instance of a cat becoming ill from eating raw pork and I'm convinced that any disease risk is too minimal to be worth my concern.

That said, there's lots of other foods out there we can offer our carnivorous little friends. If feeding pork stresses you out, Leslie, it's not worth your peace of mind. Take it off the menu!