Develop a smallholding health plan

Catriona Benson BVM&S, MRCVS highlights what you can do to protect from disease

- Catriona Benson

In our previous articles in this series, we have focused on preventing new infections arriving from outside our smallholding. However, some pathogens (agents which cause disease) will already be present on your smallholding:

Some harmful bacteria are found naturally in soil - your livestock are almost certainly going to be at risk of exposure to these.

• Some diseases may already be endemic (circulating) on your holding - perhaps you know that you have some cases of Johne’s disease in your cattle - therefore the rest of your cattle, sheep and goats are at risk of contracting this infection.

• Some microorganisms are found in low numbers in healthy animals, but given the right circumstances, can flare up and cause disease. For example, older animals carry coccidia without ill effect, but in dirty or crowded conditions, this parasite builds up and causes significant illness in young animals.

As it is not always possible to eliminate these pathogens from your smallholding, it is important to take measures to reduce the occurrence of disease within your livestock.

HYGIENE

When it comes to reducing the spread of any infectious disease, hygiene is key.

The less we expose our livestock to faeces, urine, or contamination from other animals, the less chance that disease will spread and multiply. A lot of this is common sense.

• Keep housing and bedding clean. Infections thrive in warm, wet, dirty bedding. Straw bedding should be topped up on a regular basis, to keep the surface in contact with your livestock as clean and dry as possible.

Between ‘batches’ of animals, housing should be thoroughly cleaned out. Many pathogens survive in traces of faeces within housing, and most require some level of moisture. Ensuring that we clean, disinfect AND dry housing will maximise our chances of removing residual infection.