All In Or All Gone BIOSECURITY CAMPAIGN PROTECTS FARMS, LIVELIHOOD

The Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza is real. And while there are currently no cases in Arkansas, Oklahoma or Missouri, it is critical that everyone working on poultry farms follow strict biosecurity measures to prevent HPAI from making its way onto our farms. The economic impact across the the state could be devastating.

ALL IN means ALL OF US practicing biosecurity measures ALL THE TIME.

Catching avian influenza on your farm means your chickens are ALL GONE. The flock will be depopulated, and your farm will be quarantined.

Help the poultry industry help you by educating ALL of your farm workers and ensuring they follow simple, preventative biosecurity procedures ALL the time, EVERY time. We are all in this together.

How safe is your housekeeping?

Biosecurity practices on poultry farms have evolved over time. While discouraging visitors to farms is still very important, it is now critical to think of it in terms of drawing an impenetrable line of defense around each individual poultry house. This is a new day. The biosecurity practices of the past are not sufficient to protect your farm from the disease threats of the future. One way to think about it is to assume that the virus is on your farm already and treat entry into a poultry house by you or one of your workers as potentially dangerous.

Insist on ALL IN, ALL THE TIME for every single farm worker, visitor or family member. Each person must follow the strictest biosecurity procedures when they enter the poultry house. For example, wear protective foot coverings or shoes dedicated for inside the poultry house only, make sure that any equipment used in the house is completely disinfected before it comes into the house, and prevent wild birds from getting into your poultry house. These are just a few of the must-do practices.

Are you ALL IN with biosecurity on your farm? How many of these questions can you answer “Yes” to? non-essential visitors on your farm? equipment used on your farm is cleaned and disinfected before use every single time?

entry procedure, such as dedicated footwear or disinfectant foot bath, that you and your workers use to enter your poultry house which separates the outside (dirty) from the inside (clean)? Is this procedure followed EVERY time you or your workers enter the poultry house? log for all essential visitors coming to your farm (repairmen, servicemen)? workers and family they they can’t have any contact with other chickens, turkey or wild birds when they are away from your farm? of all dead birds in a timely and approved manner?

to recognize the signs of any abnormal mortality promptly to your company’s service personnel? and rodent control program in place that is ALWAYS you prevent wild birds from EVER entering your poultry things off of your farm that could attract wild birds (feed spills, bird houses, etc.)? well or utility in your poultry house or cool cell instead of pond water?

You’re all in, but are you coworkers and family?

Anyone working on your poultry farm should be as knowledgeable about biosecurity as you are.

Have you sat down with everyone who works in your poultry houses to educate them about the threat of avian influenza and the importance of biosecurity on your poultry farm? Better yet, have you demonstrated it for them and followed through by making sure that they are implementing your biosecurity plan EVERY SINGLE TIME?

This goes for children, too. And don’t forget your have no business in a poultry house.

Out of hundreds of entries into your poultry houses that are likely to happen this fall, it only takes one biosecurity failure to bring avian influenza into your flocks.

Entering your poultry house safely is the No. 1 thing you can do to be ALL IN and protect your farm.

A safe approach is to consider everything outside of your poultry house contaminated. The avian influenza virus can survive for weeks in certain conditions. On cold, moist ground, the virus could last for a temperature, it could last for a week or more on the floorboard of your car or truck. That goes for the soles of your shoes as well.

Remember that one gram of feces from an infected bird (about the size of the end of your thumb) has enough virus to infect one MILLION birds.

There is no margin of error with this virus. That is why the experts say that you should assume that shoes, hands and everything you bring into your poultry house is already contaminated. ALWAYS clean and disinfect when you cross the biosecurity line.

It’s ALL IN, OR ALL GONE. Keep the bad stuff outside your poultry houses. Protect your farm — protect your livelihood.

Be on the lookout for biosecurity tips and other information about avian influenza in the coming weeks and months.

For a complete biosecurity checklist, see the Biosecurity page at www.ALLinALLgone.com.