Creating a Contagious Disease Biosecurity Plan

Whether you are a new chicken owner or an experienced one, owners of any flock, no matter the size, should be conscious of biosecurity and have a plan.

"Biosecurity" may not be a common household word. But, for poultry and bird owners it can spell the difference between health and disease. By practicing biosecurity, you can help reduce the chances of your birds being exposed to animal diseases such as avian influenza (AI) or exotic Newcastle disease (END).

Download the ALBC Biosecurity Plan you can use to prevent and prepare for possible contagious disease outbreaks.

Disease Considerations

Infectious disease may be transmitted via aerosol, such as by a sneeze or cough, through infected feces and urine, close contact with infected animals, through use of common feeders and waterers, by handling of sick and then healthy animals or birds, contact with transmission vectors such as wild birds, rodents, and insects, and contact with contaminated boots, clothing, vehicles and other equipment. Prevention, observation and quick control are your best tools.

Prevention

Keep your livestock and poultry healthy by providing fresh feed, fresh clean water, and plenty of ventilation and sunshine. Additional tactics will limit their exposure to disease.

• Wear dedicated clothing and footwear only while tending your poultry/livestock. Do not wear dedicated clothing or footwear off property.
• Clean boots and disinfect at the beginning and end of each visit to your poultry/livestock area.
• Do not share feed delivery with trucks traveling from other farms.
• Store feed in clean dry place free of rodents and wild birds – open feed bags should be placed in clean, covered containers.
• Control rodents, wild birds and other animal and insect vectors.
• In the likelihood of cross species disease transmission, separate species; e.g. separate waterfowl from landfowl and swine from poultry in the face of avian influenza outbreak.
• Tend young healthy stock first, followed by mature healthy stock, quarantined stock, and finally sick stock last, to prevent disease transmission.
• Clean water and feed troughs daily.
• Know the water source. Diseases such as avian influenza can be transmitted via water contaminated by wild birds or other animals.
• Regularly clean and disinfect buildings, pens, and equipment.
• Locate compost pile for used bedding away from stock, people, and vehicle traffic.
• Allow clean pens to remain empty for 24 hours or longer.
• Clean and disinfect all shovels, brooms and dust pans after use.
• Develop a relationship with a veterinarian while animals are healthy.
• Develop and write out your own biosecurity plan. This may be the difference between saving or pre-emptive destruction of your stock in the event of a disease outbreak.

Observation and Detection of Unhealthy Animals or Birds

Use early detection and treatment to halt the spread of diseases.

• Isolate any sick animals from healthy animals.
• Cull weak and sick individuals quickly.
• Promptly remove and properly dispose of any dead animals.
• Seek help from a veterinarian or experienced stock keeper when more than one animal becomes sick.
• Perform a post-mortem examination to determine any disease present. The Department of Agriculture for most states provides this service at little or no cost.
• Report outbreaks of sick poultry/livestock to your state Department of Agriculture.
• If practical, confine poultry/livestock indoors during times of outbreak risk.

Disease Transmission Check List

The transmission of disease may be prevented through good management practices that address the vectors of disease transmission.

People as Transmission Vectors

• Control access to poultry/livestock.
• If allowing visitors, provide or require that they wear clean protective clothes and footwear. Use footbath or plastic boot covers for visitors.
• Do not visit other people with livestock during outbreaks. If you do, wear clean clothing and footwear other than that worn on your farm while tending your livestock. Thoroughly clean and disinfect footwear before entering your vehicle or returning to your farm. Launder clothing immediately upon return (include hats, gloves, and coats). Shower and change clothing before visiting your own poultry/livestock.
• Do not visit commercial poultry/livestock operations or allow their employees to visit your poultry/livestock yards.
• Sick people should not come into contact with sick animals. Have a friend or family member tend stock if you become ill.
• Do not go duck hunting or visit shorebird areas during disease outbreak.
• When traveling, avoid all contact with livestock, poultry and other birds.
• When returning from a trip to a potentially infected area/country, avoid contact with any poultry/livestock for 4 days.
• Wash hands frequently – especially before and after handling any poultry/livestock.

Equipment as Transmission Vectors

• Clean vehicles and trailers periodically, especially tires, where dirt and debris can easily lodge in the treads. If this equipment travels outside of the farm, clean and disinfect upon return. (Visiting a good car wash prior to returning is ideal.)
• Separate off-farm vehicle areas from areas accessed by livestock to prevent accidental disease transmission. This means, for example, chickens should not range in the driveway.
• Encourage buyers/haulers to meet at a neutral off-farm point or limit their access to your property.
• If vehicle access on your property is necessary, spray the tires and undercarriage of the vehicle with disinfectant prior to entry and allow only within designated off-farm vehicle areas.
• Do not borrow or lend crates or equipment.
• Disinfect crates and equipment when returning to property. If used equipment is acquired, clean and disinfect thoroughly. Let the items sit outdoors in the sun for a week to allow sunlight and fresh air to kill all pathogens before moving to poultry/livestock areas.
• Remove unused furnishings or equipment from livestock and poultry facilities.
• Do not share incubator or incubate eggs from other flocks.

Animals as Transmission Vectors

• Quarantine all new animals for a minimum of 3 weeks.
• Quarantine all returning animals for a minimum of 3 weeks.
• Purchase only healthy animals, birds, chicks or eggs from reputable sources(preferably, for poultry, from NPIP certified flocks).
• Do not purchase animals or birds during outbreaks of disease.
• Do not lend stock.
• Supply feed and water indoors to discourage wild birds.
• Prevent wild birds feces from getting into clean pens. Don’t track manure in on shoes and don’t let birds in.
• During times of poultry disease threat, net over waterfowl area or use tents toenclose waterfowl and to prevent contact with wild waterfowl.
• Fence your poultry/livestock away from water areas, such as ponds or streams, to remove the possibility of contracting or spreading disease.
• Limit contact of livestock and poultry with other domestic animals, like dogs and cats.
• Control insects around and in poultry/livestock buildings – flies, beetles, roaches and other insects.
• Do not feed poultry/livestock feed meant for another species, such as hog feed to geese; this avoids feed sources that may contain poultry/livestock byproducts as a protein source from being fed to the same species.

Exhibition Transmission Vectors

• Do not show when there is a risk of disease exposure.
• Have your poultry/livestock properly tested for all health requirements.
• Do not show any recently vaccinated poultry/livestock as these may transmit disease.
• Show only poultry/livestock in the peak of health, do not bring any that are showing signs of stress.
• Check the poultry/livestock penned near your own and report any unhealthy specimens to the show management.
• Also, report to show management any unhealthy poultry/livestock seen while walking the show or sales areas.
• Wash your hands after handling someone else’s poultry/livestock and before handling your own.
• Quarantine your returning poultry/livestock for 3 or more weeks.

Potential Cross-Infection Points

Avoid high traffic locations that are likely to be visited by others with poultry or livestock. A few include:

• Feed stores
• Livestock and poultry auctions and sales
• Poultry/livestock shows
• Animal processing facilities
• Hardware stores
• Convenience stores
• Restaurants / fast food stores
• Gas stations

Education and Recordkeeping

The goal of a biosecurity plan is not only the prevention of disease, but also the ability to demonstrate an absence of risk. Biosecurity Plan implementation, personnel education, and recordkeeping are tools that accomplish this goal.

• Obtain biosecurity training and maintain proof of that training.
• Develop a biosecurity plan for your farm.
• Educate all family and farm labor on biosecurity plan.
• Obtain biosecurity materials from state and federal Departments of Agriculture.
• Post this and other biosecurity information in your office, barn, or henhouse.
• Keep record of all poultry/livestock bought and sold along with the name ofthose selling/purchasing the poultry/livestock – maintain records for five years.
• Obtain copies of health paperwork from seller for all new poultry/livestock purchased – maintain for at least five years.
• Keep a health history for your flock/herd. Include all disease or health issues, date, treatment, and outcome. Record all vaccinations and include batch serial number, type of vaccine, and vaccination date – maintain permanent record of flock/herd history.
• Keep record of all visitors.

Although this article, provided by our partner, The American Livestock Breed Conservancy, is written with an eye towards rare and heritage breeds, the information is applicable to any flock.

Keeping livestock and poultry healthy is the keystone to any livestock or poultry agricultural endeavor. Healthy animals grow better, reproduce more efficiently and produce more economically valuable products. Unhealthy animals cause a producer to spend more time managing the stock, more money on health inputs and vet bills, and often produce less or poor quality products. Without healthy animals, conservation, production, and profitability are impossible.

One of the reasons rare breeds of livestock and poultry are so loved by their keepers is because they are so naturally hardy. This hardiness comes from practical selection within the environment of the small farm, where expense decisions have historically been carefully weighed. Judicious practices such as culling unthrifty individuals, when practiced over many generations, leave most Conservation Priority List breeds with very hardy immune systems. This hardiness, however, does not make these breeds immune to all potential health threats.

In planning to maintain the health and hardiness of rare breeds, there are a number of “tools” available: careful and well-thought out breeding strategies, selective culling, appropriate nutrition plans, modern medicine, passive transfer of antibodies, and reducing potential exposure to disease. All of these and more represent the scope of biosecurity. The last point, reducing potential exposure to disease, is particularly important during times of disease threat and is an element easily controlled by you, the steward, for very little expense.

The threat of contagious disease can be reduced or prevented through removing the possibility of contact between the disease and the animal. This is done by addressing the many ways disease could be introduced. Controlling disease transmission vectors is particularly important when a highly infectious disease is circulating. Given that today distance is much less a limiting factor, all livestock keepers should implement such individual biosecurity protocols that will work well for their own situation.

A Contagious Disease Biosecurity Plan is useful in preventing disease, and in validating and documenting your commitment to disease prevention. During times of disease outbreak, having a Contagious Disease Biosecurity Plan and evidence of its implementation may be the difference between retention or pre-emptive destruction of your stock due to disease eradication efforts.

The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy has compiled a list of biosecurity protocols that can be used to tailor a Contagious Disease Biosecurity Plan for your individual farm. We have provided a sample plan that can be adopted as is, or that can be reviewed as a basis in understanding how to formulate a custom plan. The ALBC Contagious Disease Biosecurity Plan is complete with protocols to implement during routine or crisis situations – you simple check off those protocols that will work on your farm. Choosing protocols can be easy, but it is important that you follow all of those protocols you select. So, use the following Contagious Disease Biosecurity Plan as an outline to help you understand the principles of biosecurity and to help you formulate a plan that will fit the particular needs of your farm. What you do today will protect you and your livestock well into the future.

AI Considerations

Avian influenza is a disease of current concern. Some pertinent facts about this disease help to explain management practices that aid in the prevention of such diseases.

• High path avian influenza causes high mortality and can be characterized by rapid losses of a large percentage of poultry very quickly.
• Incubation period from exposure to high path avian influenza is from 3-7 days. Death from infection takes as little as 2-5 days from exposure to particularly virulent strains.
• Wild waterfowl are considered reservoirs of this disease. Avoid mixing species as mixed-species flocks can act as catalysts for virus mutation and increase the risks of outbreaks.
• During the 1983-84 outbreak in Pennsylvania, only waterfowl and shore birds, such as ducks, geese and gulls, showed serological evidence of infection with avian influenza. Sparrows, starlings, pigeons and crows showed no evidence of infection.
• A healthy pigeon or other domestic or wild bird can land amongst an infected flock and mechanically carry virus on their feathers to a healthy flock.
• Italian researchers have found that infected turkeys shed 10,000 times more avian influenza virus in their feces than infected chickens.
• The disease is primarily excreted through feces and is not significantly transmitted by aerosol, except in the case of transfer of virus between birds in single house.
• Avian influenza virus survives longest at cooler temperatures. For example, the virus survives for 35 days at 39.2 degrees F and 7 days at 68 degrees F.
• Avian influenza virus is easily destroyed by detergent, disinfectants, sunlight, drying and heat. The FAO Animal Health Special Report states: The avian influenza virus is more simple to destroy than many other viruses since it is very sensitive to detergents which destroy the fat containing outer layer of the virus. This layer is needed to enter cells of animals and therefore destroys the infectivity. The virus survives well in water and simple washing may assist the virus to enter into areas where it is picked up by other birds. Therefore any washing to remove contamination should always be with detergents (soapy water) or specific disinfectants.

To learn more about Biosecurity, find additional articles at the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

Copyright American Livestock Breeds Conservancy 2011

*IMPORTANT NOTE: The information included on this website is for general educational purposes only. Please do not rely on information provided on this website as a substitute for the professional judgment, advice and guidance of your veterinarian relating to the treatment of and care for your animals based on their particular circumstances and needs. Maintaining regular appointments with your veterinarian will help ensure the best care for your animals. Always consult your veterinarian before starting any course of supplementation or treatment for your animals. TSC is not responsible for any loss, injury, or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestions on this website.

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