Farm Animal Biosecurity
Farm Animal Biosecurity Services in Co. Cork
Our farm animal biosecurity services help safeguard the health of your livestock in Co. Cork. We focus on reducing the risk of disease entering your farm and controlling its spread within the herd. With tailored plans, we help you implement effective biosecurity measures to protect your animals. For more information or to discuss your biosecurity needs, please contact us. Our experienced veterinary team is here to provide guidance and ensure the health and safety of your livestock.
Key Biosecurity Practices for Protecting Your Herd
Biosecurity involves implementing management practices to protect the health of animals on your farm.
It involves:
- Measures taken to reduce the risk of disease coming into your farm from outside (bio-exclusion)
- Measures taken to decrease the spread of disease within the herd (biocontainment)
Many diseases are carried and spread by animals that appear healthy – these are carrier animals. Maintaining a closed herd is the gold standard, but this is often not possible.
Signs You Don’t Have a Closed Herd
Maintaining a closed herd is crucial for minimizing disease risks and protecting the health of your livestock. However, several practices can compromise your herd’s biosecurity and increase the likelihood of disease entering your operation.
Remember you do not have a closed herd if you:
- Buy in a Bull: Introducing a bull from an external source can bring diseases into your herd.
- Borrow Bulls: Borrowing bulls from other farms increases the risk of disease transmission between herds.
- Exhibit at Shows: Showing animals at events exposes them to pathogens carried by other livestock.
- Share Cattle Handling Facilities: Shared facilities can lead to the spread of infectious diseases between herds.
- Return Unsold Cattle Back into the Herd: Unsold cattle may carry diseases from markets or sales venues, affecting herd health.
- Have Poor Boundary Fences: Inadequate fencing allows direct contact with neighboring livestock, increasing disease risk.
- Use Common Grazing or Housing: Sharing grazing land or housing with other herds heightens the possibility of disease transmission.
Principle Practices within Your Farm to Improve Biosecurity
- Maintain good boundary fences, that is a double fence, 5 meters apart.
- Avoid nose-to-nose contact with neighbouring cattle
- Keep farm visitors to a minimum, and if visitors are essential ensure that they use footbaths and disinfect clothing.
- Keep contact between visitors and stock to a minimum
- Keep dead stock collection away from the livestock areas
- If you do use contractors, insist that al machinery is clean on entry to the farm.
Purchase of Cattle
Purchasing cattle is one of the most likely ways of introducing disease onto your farm. However, this is often necessary in the management of some farms.
So what do you do to minimize the risks? – We can help you draw up a plan specific to your farm that suits your needs and management practices. A brief outline would be as follows:
Step 1. Draw up a plan
Step 2. Buy as few animals as possible
Step 3. Buy from as few herds as possible – the more herds you buy from, the more potential diseases you are exposed to.
Step 4. Select from low-risk herds.
Do not be afraid to ask the questions:
- Do they buy cattle
- What do they vaccinate for?
- When do they vaccinate?
- Have they recently seen results of screening tests in bulk milk or blood?
- Ask about TB, Johnes, IBR, Lepto, Neospora, Salmonella, BVD.
Step 5. Buy only low-risk animals.
All animals do not carry the same risk of introducing disease into your herd, and tests do not always identify high-risk animals.
So look for:
- Clear test results
- Vaccination history
- Dosing history
- SCC
- Animals free of obvious disease
Step 6. Reduce transport risks. Use clean disinfected transport boxes, to transport directly from the vendors’ farm to your own.
Step 7. Put new animals in quarantine. Quarantine means the animals are in complete isolation from the rest of the herd and do not share the same airspace. The home herd should have no contact with slurry or bedding from quarantined animals. Separate feeding equipment and clothing should be used.
A period of 4 weeks quarantine is recommended. This period allows you time to test for specific diseases, carry out any vaccinations deemed necessary, and allows you time to monitor the health status of the animals over this period.
Only when you are satisfied with their health, have carried out vaccinations allowing adequate time for antibody levels to be established, and have negative results to all tests carried out should you then allow these animals to join your herd.
We Will Help You to Decide
- What to test for
- What vaccinations to use
- What doses to use
- Carry out a clinical examination of these animals to protect your herd from the introduction of infectious diseases.
The above is a brief outline; a more detailed plan tailored to your farm’s specific needs is essential. We can work with you to develop this plan, conduct a risk assessment of your farm and quarantine facilities, and perform any necessary tests.