Best Management Practices for the Prevention of Entry of Disease onto Livestock Operations

Visitors

Discourage all visitors and limit access to the farm.
Communicate and explain disease prevention procedures to visitors.
Exclude international visitors from your farm for at least 5 days after their arrival in the United States.
Ask all visitors (especially international) to provide information about recent farm and animal contacts.
Clothing worn on other farms (including international operations) should be washed and footwear should be disinfected. Have plastic, disposable boots available. Consider having overalls available that do not leave the farm.
No visitors with soiled clothing and/or footwear from another farm should be allowed on your farm.
Do not allow animal products, clothes, luggage, cameras and other items from affected countries onto your farm or offer to disinfect them (at owners risk) by wiping with a cloth dampened with a solution of 5 teaspoons of household bleach mixed in a gallon of water.
Do not allow visitors to walk through feed mangers or have physical contact with animals.

Have one common entrance/exit onto your farm. Provide disposable boots or disinfectant footbath.
Stop all non-essential vehicles and visitors from entering the farm and arrange, whenever possible, for collection and delivery of supplies to take place at farm boundary (i.e. rendering trucks).
Keep a record of all deliveries. In case of a disease outbreak this will assist in epidemiological investigations.
All vehicles that must enter the farm premise should be clean of organic material. For vehicles that do not need direct access to farm operations have an area available that is a good distance from livestock and feed.

When purchasing livestock determine the health history of the animal and the source herd. Test on the recommendations of your veterinarian. Keep records of all livestock movement onto the farm.
Segregate new additions as well as returning animals (show animals, custom raised heifers, etc.) from home herd for 21 – 30 days. Implement strict health monitoring procedures for segregated animals.
Initiate and maintain vaccination program for incoming and resident animals. Consult with your veterinarian on a farm-specific program.
Minimize non-resident animal contact.
- Prevent contact with other livestock (fenceline, transport vehicles, sale barns, shows, fairs).
- Control non-resident stray dogs and cats.
- Implement management practices to limit direct contact with wildlife, including deer, waterfowl and birds.
- Implement control measures for birds and rodents. Pay particular attention to livestock feed. o Implement an integrated pest management program for the control of insects and parasites.

Protect against manure entry onto the farm from vehicles and equipment, or runoff from neighboring animal premises.
Avoid use of manure (poultry, cattle or other livestock) or manure products and municipal waste from off premise unless products are certified pathogen free.

Purchased feed may be a potential source of disease organisms and chemical contaminants.
Purchase feed from sources using quality control measures to minimize the risk of fecal, organic or chemical contamination.
Ensure that purchased feeds do not contain protein derived from ruminant tissues.

To create a disease prevention herd plan, consider enrolling in the NYS Cattle Health Assurance Program.