What is BIOSECURITY
Biosecurity is a practice designed to prevent the spread of disease onto your poultry farm. By maintaining your facility within the framework of 'Biosecurity' there is a minimal traffic of biological organisms (viruses, bacteria, rodents, etc.) that would usually and easily get on to your farm.
Objectives
- Prevent the introduction of infectious disease to poultry
- Prevent the spread of disease from an infected area to an uninfected area
- Minimise the incidence and spread of micro-organisms of public health significance
Biosecurity & Quarantine are integral parts of any successful poultry production system
This applies equally to conventionally housed birds and free-range operations. It is recognised that free-range birds will have some exposure to wild birds. However, in these environments measures should be taken to minimise the congregation of waterfowl and the impacts of wild birds generally, and these measures should be documented.
While footbaths (with disinfectant) are appropriate for a free-range camps, a system should be implemented to monitor and prevent any potential hazardous organic material or litter entering free-range coops areas and these measures should be documented.
Good fencing is required around free-range farms to prevent the entry of animals such as dogs, cats and other wild animals. In many situations, however, fencing alone is insufficient to stop such intrusions, therefore free-range enterprises should keep specially trained dogs with the chickens, as protection against other animals and against unauthorised human entry. Guard dogs such as these are not regarded as a biosecurity risk but rather as a biosecurity tool.
Biosecurity refers to those measures taken to prevent or control the introduction and spread of infectious agents to a flock. Such infectious agents, whether they cause clinical or sub-clinical disease, significantly reduce the productivity, profitability and long term financial viability of a poultry operation.
Biosecurity is about managing risk to meet the objectives stated above. It is essential that a risk assessment be conducted for each enterprise to establish what level of risk exists in each phase of the operations and to identify and implement control measures appropriate to these levels of risk.
This identifies areas of risk common to most poultry farms and appropriate measures to minimise these risks. When undertaking the risk assessment underpinning the farm-specific biosecurity measures, it is important to take into account all factors that may impact on the biosecurity of the production area.
These factors should include the species of bird being produced, location and layout of property and production area, source of water supply, disease status of the district, proximity to other production areas with avian species, presence and type of wildlife, and interface with the organisations and/or individual clients that are being supplied.
These interactions include chicken collection, servicemen, industry personnel, contractors and deliveries of day-old chicks and feed. An additional element in the prevention of introduction and spread of disease is the use of vaccination. The importance of an appropriate vaccination strategy is acknowledged, and vaccination as a possible risk management measure should form part of the overall biosecurity assessment and strategy.
The purpose is to establish a minimum set of biosecurity guidelines, applicable to poultry producers starting from the breeding farm, hatcheries to the point of delivery, the meat growing farmer, egg production, ending at the value-add, the abattoir or processing factory.
Always remember with utmost consideration & importance - you are producing products for human consumption.
Click on the Biosecurity sign-board below for a better understanding what biosecurity entails download the PDF document
