{"id":34,"date":"2016-11-30T14:01:33","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T19:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/?p=34"},"modified":"2016-12-01T08:04:28","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T13:04:28","slug":"securing-the-homefront-for-poultry-flocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/2016\/11\/securing-the-homefront-for-poultry-flocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Securing the Homefront for Poultry Flocks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/files\/2016\/11\/Ritz-Tip.pdf\">PDF Version<\/a><\/p>\n<p>How many times have you heard about <strong>biosecurity<\/strong>?\u00a0 Too many to count?\u00a0 Yet, how often are biosecurity practices implemented on your farm and to what extent is it a priority?\u00a0 Talk to anyone who has had a bad disease outbreak on their farm due to outside factors and the issue of biosecurity becomes one of top priority.<\/p>\n<p>By definition, &#8220;<strong>biosecurity<\/strong>&#8221; is a defensive health management plan to keep poultry flocks free from disease.\u00a0 Every aspect of a biosecurity program is prevention-based.\u00a0\u00a0 It is a planned prevention approach that includes measures relating to management and hygiene which collectively reduce the potential for disease introduction within the flock.<\/p>\n<p>Infectious diseases can be spread to a poultry flock by a number of factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Human traffic and shared equipment that moves from one flock to another<\/li>\n<li>Vectors such as rodents, free-flying birds, insects, wild animals, and family pets<\/li>\n<li>Improper disposal of mortality<\/li>\n<li>Contaminated water sources<\/li>\n<li>Contaminated feed<\/li>\n<li>Airborne organisms<\/li>\n<li>Egg transmission<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To be effective, a biosecurity program must have three main components: 1) Traffic Control;\u00a02) Isolation; and 3) Sanitation.<\/p>\n<p>The importance of controlling the flow of traffic on a farm cannot be overstated.\u00a0 This includes both the access to the farm and on-farm traffic patterns.\u00a0 Vehicles and equipment\u00a0should be carefully washed and disinfected.\u00a0 Discourage the loaning of equipment such as manure spreaders from one farm to another.\u00a0 Avoid visiting other poultry premises, particularly those that grow a different bird type.\u00a0\u00a0Keep a logbook of all visitors in order to help trace the path of a\u00a0developing disease\u00a0outbreak should one occur.\u00a0 When visitors do arrive, direct the flow of human traffic from youngest birds to older birds if more than one age is on a farm.\u00a0 Footwear should be disinfected to and from each site and between buildings to help decrease the spread of organisms carried from one location to the next.\u00a0 If footbaths are used as a means of disinfection, they must be located where they are unavoidable and will get the most use, such as directly in a doorway.\u00a0 A nice and clean footbath in the corner with a lid over it will accomplish nothing if it does not get used.<\/p>\n<p>Isolating your flock from the outside world within a controlled environment is not always an easy thing to do, but keeping your birds confined not only keeps them protected from the elements but helps to keep other animals and organisms out.\u00a0 Isolation includes a pest control program for vector intruders and\u00a0focuses on eliminating possible access points to keep pests from finding a suitable living habitat within or adjacent to the poultry facilities.\u00a0 Isolating poultry from other livestock is also important as chickens, turkeys, cattle, swine and equine are all subject to cross infection.\u00a0 For commercial farm employees,\u00a0\u00a0personal\u00a0small flock\u00a0poultry, exotic or pet birds must not be allowed\u00a0to help prevent introduction of unknown pathogens in to the work site.<\/p>\n<p>Sanitation encompasses the cleaning and disinfection of materials and equipment entering the farm and the cleanliness of existing facilities and personnel.\u00a0 All-in\/all-out management allows for the depopulation of facilities between flocks and the sanitation and disinfection of housing and equipment to break the cycle of disease.\u00a0 Biosecurity practices are teamed up with sanitation and disinfection procedures to reduce pathogens to non-infectious levels should a disease get a hold within a flock.\u00a0 A sanitized, vacant house becomes free of pathogens more rapidly than a house that is left to stand dirty.\u00a0 Proper disposal of mortality and loose trash is a critical control point for good sanitation and effective vector control.<\/p>\n<p>If having a good biosecurity program is so important, why then don&#8217;t more people make the effort to put an effective\u00a0program in place? Is it because of economics, convenience, or perhaps a little of both?<\/p>\n<p>We often underestimate the real cost of disease.\u00a0 Besides outright mortality, loss of live weight or egg production and cost of feed prior to death are contributors to lost revenue.\u00a0 Morbidity in those birds that remain alive can also have an impact through poorer weight gains, higher feed conversion, increased condemnations for birds that are\u00a0processed, and stunted egg production for layers.\u00a0 And of course there can be the additional costs of disease diagnosis, vaccinations and medications.<\/p>\n<p>A biosecurity program must be practical and flexible in nature to increase the likelihood that it will be followed.\u00a0 In order to judge how much biosecurity is needed, the economics, common sense approach, and relative risk must be weighed together to determine to what extent a biosecurity program is implemented.\u00a0 When it comes down to it, a biosecurity program is a low-cost disease &#8220;insurance&#8221; policy and\u00a0is the cheapest, most effective means of disease prevention.\u00a0 Without it,\u00a0the cost of disease recovery will certainly\u00a0outweigh any\u00a0cost of preventative measures that could have been taken.\u00a0 View biosecurity expenditures not as unnecessary costs but as investments in a productive and profitable future.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Make biosecurity disease prevention <\/strong><strong>the only disease connection on your farm.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p><em>Biosecurity for Exotic Fowl,<\/em> by J.S.D. Jeffrey, Texas A&amp;M University<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PDF Version How many times have you heard about biosecurity?\u00a0 Too many to count?\u00a0 Yet, how often are biosecurity practices implemented on your farm and to what extent is it a priority?\u00a0 Talk to anyone who has had a bad disease outbreak on their farm due to outside factors and the issue of biosecurity becomes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":57,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backyard","category-biosecurity","category-broiler","category-layer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/55"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/poultrytips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}