Evaluate risks

What are the risks to your herd at various levels of disease? How many goats are you willing or can you afford to lose to disease? If all of your does aborted one year would you be able to stay in business? If you had foot rot in the herd would the extra labor and expense be worth the savings of not having had a biosecurity program? What are your marketing risks? If you had CL in your goats would your clients refuse to buy slaughter goats from you? If you had Johne’s disease would you still be able to sell breeding stock to other producers.

The process of evaluating your farm to determine levels of risk and practical methods of limiting or eliminating risk is called risk analysis. Risk analysis involves you and your veterinarian evaluating your facilities, your disease status, your animals, and your management. When the analysis is over you should have a prioritized list of any significant risks to your animal’s health and a plan to minimize or eliminate them.

Evaluate your facilities

Map your farm and see where you are. Do you have fence-line contact with other livestock? Do you have drainage problems that will contaminate fields with manure runoff? Do you have an area where you can quarantine incoming animals? Do you have adequate facilities that you can separate healthy animals from sick animals?

Evaluate your disease status

What diseases do you have in the herd at this time?
Is it worth eradicating those diseases you already have?

Evaluate your animals

Are your animals genetically superior animals that would be hard to replace or would you be better off depopulating and repopulating now?

Evaluate management

Is management motivated enough to develop a plan and stick to it?
Is management capable of following through on a plan or will there not be enough time or expertise available?

Set goals

Set health goals for your existing animals. For example “all of my goats will be negative for CL.” Be very specific with goals and make no exceptions to these rules. Not even for your favorite pet goat.
Set health goals for incoming animals. For example “All incoming goats will have to test negative for CL.”

Prepare a written protocol

Do this with your veterinarian. Consider your goals, animals, facilities, current disease status and management and make up a plan that fits your operation. The plan needs to cover biocontainment of existing diseases, disease surveillance, entry of new animals, quarantine procedures and visitors. Put the protocol in writing. Post it in appropriate places and stick with it.

Communicate

Communicate with employees, neighbors, customers and delivery personnel. Let them know what is being done and what will be required of them to do. Post signs that clearly delineate biosecure areas from non-secure areas.

Implement the plan

Put it in play. See if it is workable. At least once per year sit down and re-evaluate. Is everything working as envisioned?

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