Bio-Security to Protect Rare Breeds

Most experienced farmers know all about bio-security – that is, the tactics for preventing the introduction of infectious diseases to their farms.  So do the majority of rare breed enthusiasts.  Still, we could all benefit from taking a moment to review our own practices and consider whether we might improve them.  We also should consider what added precautions we would take should an infectious disease such as Foot and Mouth threaten livestock close to home. 

The normal, everyday strategies employed by most farmers haven’t been enough to protect key strains of certain rare breeds in England (and elsewhere in Europe), where foot and mouth disease and the resulting widespread slaughter policies have wiped out some genetic stocks.

Rare Breeds International reports significant effects to stocks of British Lop and Gloucester Old Spots pigs, with losses also among Manx Loghtan, Hebridiean, Whitefaced Woodland and Castlemilk Moorit sheep and Dexter cattle.  In the Netherlands, a cull program aimed at creating a “firewall” to contain the spread of foot and mouth threatens the last 100 Schoonbeker sheep in the world.  By the time you read this article, they may be gone - another valuable set of genetic traits erased.  

How can we prevent this from happening to our own cherished breeds?  The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy  offers tips on its web site in the article “Bio-Security Essential to Saving Rare Breed.”   

Briefly summarized, the conservancy advises these common sense tactics.

• Limit visitor access to your animals.
• Quarantine new stock.
• Clean and disinfect your clothes and boots following visits to other farms and after doing chores in a quarantine area of your own farm. 
• Disinfect equipment and vehicles before they leave your farm and when they return.
• In the event of an infectious disease outbreak,  enhance disinfection procedures to include washing down and disinfecting ALL vehicles entering your farm EACH time they enter.  Allow no outside contact with animals and no visitors.

 Another point to consider is what our own government officials might require of us in the case of an infectious disease outbreak.  Who do we notify if we suspect Foot and Mouth or another highly infectious disease?  What diseases are we legally required to report?  To whom do we report them?  Then what? 

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