Disease prevention, step by step
Interactive lesson: how to keep disease off the holding, stop it when it gets in and spot it in time — biosecurity, cleaning, quarantine, observation.
Free sample Chapters 1 and 2 (8 steps) are free. The full lesson comes with the Disease prevention module. Already bought? Unlock
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The whole lesson as text
1. Three rings of biosecurity
Don't let disease in, don't let it spread, and don't carry it further.
- Buy from a healthy herd — Buy from a known, healthy herd, with papers, tags and test results. Don't buy at a market "off a man with a lorry".
- Separate boots — Separate boots and work clothes for the shed. Visitors who keep the same species don't come in without overshoes.
- Don't borrow equipment — Don't borrow trailers, foot shears, hay racks, drinkers or carriers without washing and disinfecting them.
- Fencing and netting — Fencing and netting keep foxes, badgers, deer, stray dogs, wild birds and, in the US, feral hogs away from feed and water.
Why: On a small holding most diseases arrive with a new animal, a borrowed trailer, a visitor's boots, rodents, or wildlife over the fence. Preventing them is cheaper than treating them.
- Quarantine also applies to a gift and to an animal coming back from a sale, a show or a borrowed male.
- Write down everyone who comes into the shed and isn't from the household: if disease breaks out, you know where it may have come from.
2. Hygiene of the shed
Clean first, then disinfect: no disinfectant works on dirt and dung.
- Muck out — Muck out bedding, manure and feed leftovers.
- Wash top to bottom — Wash with water and a brush, from top to bottom.
- Let it dry — Let it dry, ideally with sun and a through draught.
- Disinfect or limewash — A disinfectant as the label says, or slaked lime, wearing gloves, goggles and a mask. Don't mix products. Bring back the animals and fresh bedding only when it is dry and aired.
Why: Bacteria, viruses and parasite eggs live in dung, urine, saliva and dust. A big clean-out is done at least twice a year: in spring before turnout and births, and in autumn before winter.
- Rinse drinkers every day and scrub them weekly: green slime and algae breed bacteria.
- After disease, an abortion or a death, clean at once, as the vet tells you.
3. Quarantine · Locked
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4. Daily observation · Locked
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5. Feed and water · Locked
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6. Protecting people · Locked
Buy the Disease prevention module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.