If an outbreak of FMD were to occur on a property nearby, what immediate steps could people take to help contain the spread of the disease?
1. Move all livestock away from the boundaries of your property. As soon as they are told of an FMD outbreak in their region, the first thing livestock owners should do is move their livestock away from their boundaries – ideally into a paddock with secure fencing in the middle of their property. If all livestock owners do this, it will create a network of buffer zones. This simple action is probably the most important thing that livestock owners can do to help contain the spread of the disease – providing, of course, it is done quickly and that there is a clean muster of all livestock from those boundary paddocks. If you have livestock on a property that is separate from your home block, the stock standstill will prevent you bringing your animals home. So you should move your animals away from the boundaries on each of your separate properties. In these first few hours of an FMD outbreak, we won’t know whether the disease has spread beyond the infected property and therefore we won’t
