Pulse medication is an alternative programme to continuous medication for the control of disease. The medication is given either in water or feed for short periods of only 48-72 hours.

Only medicines with short withdrawal periods can be used if pigs are near market weight. Treatment costs are reduced compared to continuous medication. It does need careful control to ensure that withdrawal periods are observed and is difficult to carry out where automated feeding systems are used. It is more ideal for use in wet feeding systems.

Pulse medication has been used successfully in the control of pneumonia, using a combination of 300g/tonne of CTC and 30g/tonne of tiamulin. Such medication could be used for two days followed by four days off. Results on farms have shown an improvement in food conversion of 0.2, daily liveweight gain of 6.7%, and considerable reductions in lung scores at slaughter.