Can farm equipment present a risk for disease entry?
Farm equipment that has come into contact with livestock or their bodily discharges can be a source of infections. Manure- hauling equipment should not be shared between farms without thorough cleaning and disinfection. Likewise, on-farm use of such things as front-end buckets and skid-steer loaders for both manure removal and feed delivery can spread diseases such as salmonella, leptospirosis, cryptosporidiosis, and Johne’s disease, to name a few. Cleaning and disinfection of this equipment should be routine. Vehicle tires and under carriages can harbor disease-causing germs, especially if they have come into direct contact with animal discharges. Many germs do not survive long outside the animal, but some do, and these sources can be critical for highly transmissible diseases such as FMD. Practical biosecurity for day-to-day situations can be achieved without the total restriction of entry to the farm that might be appropriate in an FMD emergency situation. Biosecurity requires a pla
