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Pork Checkoff
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Biosecurity:
Shore Up the Weakest Links on Your Farm
W
hen it comes to biosecurity, there are many
common protocols that should be followed
on every farm. But still, one size doesn’t fit all.
Success depends on tailoring biosecurity for every site,
with everyone knowing and carrying out the plan.
“The temptation is to create a laundry list of biosecurity
steps, hand it to employees or growers, and check that off
the to-do list,” said Lisa Becton, DVM, director of swine
health information and research for the Pork Checkoff.
“The hitch is that priorities may be unclear, and people
may feel overwhelmed so they do little or nothing,” Bec-
ton said. “Biosecurity measures are somewhat universal
for disease prevention, regardless of the pathogen. But
farmers have to review and determine their own farm’s
risk level, which will drive how and what biosecurity steps
need to be taken.”
By identifying risk events or vulnerabilities – the weak-
est links – within a production site, a producer can break
biosecurity into manageable pieces and address specific
needs.
Two principles guide on-farm biosecurity, according to
Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, DVM, a biosecurity expert at the
University of Montreal. 1) Reduce the source of contamina-
tion through materials, animals, people, equipment, etc. 2)
Separate affected animals from healthy ones.
“Producers should separate the outside from the inside
to prevent the pathogens from reaching animals,” Vaillan-
August 2019 • VOL. 15, NO. 2
“... farmers have to review and determine
their farm’s risk level, which will drive how
and what biosecurity steps need to be taken.”
– Lisa Becton, DVM, Pork Checkoff
court said. “Of course, with larger facilities closer togeth-
er, the infection pressure per square mile has increased.”
That includes more pigs, people, vehicles, equipment,
insects and more risk events, according to Clayton John-
son, DVM, Carthage Veterinary Services, Carthage, Illinois.
“A pathogen doesn’t care how it gets into the farm. It
will exploit whatever access you give it,” Johnson said.
Draw a Strict Line of Separation
“If you don’t have a ‘line of separation’ on your farm
and maintain it, you don’t have biosecurity,” Becton said.
“In fact, you may need to set up several lines within a site,
because biosecurity is not just about exposure from the
outside, but also the lateral spread of disease.”
At its most basic, a line of separation designates the
outside (contaminated) area and the inside (clean) area.
Think in terms of drawing a line in the sand – a point at
which certain parties must not cross.
Continued on page 2
Continued from page 1
For example, identify a line where the animal transporter
is not to cross and where farm or market personnel are to re-
main. If a barn worker does cross it, they cannot return to the
clean side. The separation line must be clearly marked, with
individuals made aware of where it exists in every situation.
Lines of separation for transporters might be at the cab of a
truck, the back of a trailer or a loading chute. Within a produc-
tion site, the shower or bench entry would be the ‘dirty’ side,
while the shower exit would represent the clean line. Another
line could be a designated driveway that feed trucks must use
to control traffic flow and potential exposure.
The take-home message? Approach every contact with a
site or market as if it could contaminate a truck, trailer or herd.
The one time you don’t follow biosecurity rules could be the
time when your herd will get sick.
Zeroing in on Biosecurity Risks
Identifying risk events commonly associated with disease
outbreaks has been a priority for Derald Holtkamp, DVM, pro-
fessor, veterinary diagnostics and production animal medicine,
Iowa State University. Starting in 2013 with a grant from the
Iowa Pork Producers Association, he developed a disease out-
break investigation system for use by trained veterinarians.
Further support from the Swine Health Information Cen-
ter has expanded the effort, including making the materials
available on its website at swinehealth.org. Holtkamp also is
evaluating risk events within a database to identify patterns.
The effort started with porcine reproductive and respiratory
syndrome (PRRS) outbreaks. Now, with 19 outbreak investiga-
tions under his belt, Holtkamp has found some commonalities
(pork.to/scoring).
Employee entry, removal of culls and scheduled repairs are
events most frequently rated “high risk” for biosecurity, Holt-
kamp noted. But the frequency of most any event increased the
farm’s disease risk. The outbreak investigations have improved
PRRS biosecurity strategies and shed light on other risks.
“The more disease investigations we do, the more insights
we gain and the more data we collect,” Holtkamp said. “This
helps producers refine their biosecurity plans.”
Collective Momentum Needed to Protect U.S. Herd
Johnson said that on the farm, on a daily basis, “It’s hard to
know when you’re the biosecurity hero, that you did some-
thing correctly to prevent an outbreak. So, it can be hard to
maintain urgency.”
He added, “But with domestic diseases, such as PRRS and
porcine epidemic diarrhea virus and the global threat of Afri-
can swine fever (ASF), it’s everyone’s responsibility to embrace
the urgency. Start by picking a link in the chain that you’re
going to work on today and build from there.”
It’s also critical to be transparent and collaborate.
“If you have a secret sauce for biosecurity, share it,” John-
son said. “If something like ASF isn’t enough of a common en-
emy to unite us to share best practices, I don’t’ know what is.”
For producer resources and tools about increasing your
farm’s biosecurity, visit pork.org and search for “biosecurity.”
Pick the Low-Hanging
Whether you’re drawing up a new biosecurity plan or
revising a previous one, you need to involve your herd
veterinarian and employees in the barn, according to
Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, DVM, University of Montreal.
“Let everybody contribute biosecurity ideas,” Vail-
lancourt said. “Not only will it give them ownership,
it will build trust. Unrealistic expectations lead to
non-compliance. If something is too complicated or
doesn’t makes sense, it will not get done.”
And people will make mistakes, noted Derald Holt-
kamp, DVM, Iowa State University.
“It’s important to have layers of biosecurity to pro-
vide redundancy,” Holtkamp said. “When mistakes are
made at one layer, there is another layer to prevent an
outbreak. A biosecurity system with multiple layers is
more likely to be robust enough to tolerate mistakes.”
“There is some low-hanging fruit that can bump
up your farm’s biosecurity,” he said. “Concentrate on
inexpensive things that are easy to do.”
These include the following steps that all pig farms
should be addressing at a minimum today.
1) Define the first clean/dirty line.
“This starts with the walls surrounding the pig barns,”
said Clayton Johnson, DVM, Carthage Veterinary Ser-
vices. “The inside is clean; the outside is dirty. Be strict
that crossing the line requires some level of hygiene.”
Painting door frames and concrete or designating
areas with colored duct tape provide visual reminders.
2) Keep up with maintenance.
Good maintenance goes hand in hand with a solid
biosecurity plan. When equipment breaks down or
feed bridges, it’s easy to break biosecurity rules.
“Or you may need to bring someone in from the
outside for the repair, and because you think they
don’t have much exposure to pigs, you bend the
rules,” Holtkamp said. “Don’t reduce your focus on
biosecurity.”
Fruit
3) Check for leaky bins.
In line with maintenance, ensure that feed is not
spilling out and building up under bins. It’s an invita-
tion for birds, rodents and other wildlife. It may cost
some money to fix, but so does the wasted feed.
4) Share farm rules with incoming crews.
While onsite workers should know the biosecurity
rules, occasional visitors, such as vaccination and
loadout crews or repairmen and technicians, pose
higher risks. Johnson suggests calling ahead of time
to explain the biosecurity rules, including how to enter
the farm, what clothing/showering requirements are in
place, and how to recognize the clean/dirty lines.
“A 15-minute phone call goes a long way in helping
crews comply with biosecurity rules,” Johnson said.
“Be sure someone onsite confirms it gets done.”
5) Prioritize loadouts.
Prioritize clean trailers for the first cut of market
hogs because there are not enough truck washes,
time or personnel to wash, disinfect and dry every
truck/trailer every time, Johnson says.
“You have another four to five weeks to empty the
barn, so you don’t want to expose the remaining pigs
to a disease that could cause some serious conse-
quences,” he said. “Staged loading is another idea
gaining traction (see sidebar).”
6) Provide showers: yes or no.
On sow farms, showering in and out is a fixture, but
it is less common on growing-pig sites.
“A shower’s not necessary, but you should change
into dedicated farm clothes and shoes and wash your
hands,” Johnson said. “Emphasize hand washing and
honor all clean/dirty lines. If there is a shower, its ef-
fectiveness depends on how it is used, its location and
flow from clean to dirty sides (including towels – clean
side only), how clean it is and how it’s supplied.”
“You need a series of failures for a disease outbreak
to occur. A robust system can tolerate mistakes,
because if one layer fails, you have backups.”
– Derald Holtkamp, DVM, Iowa State University.
7) Avoid mistakes bringing in supplies.
The pass-through windows, UV chambers and
disinfectant rooms for incoming supplies are common
areas for mistakes.
“We get addicted to those magic areas,” Johnson
said. “Just because you send items through doesn’t
mean they are magically clean.”
All surfaces need to be exposed. For disinfection,
contact times matter and that differs by the disinfec-
tant. Everything coming into a barn should be ad-
dressed, but some prioritization is helpful, Johnson
noted. For example, the new microwave purchased
for the lunchroom is different than the welder bor-
rowed from another site.
8) Follow biosecurity plan when
removing culls and mortalities.
“Both are high-risk events, and respecting the
clean/dirty line is a must,” Johnson said. “For culls,
apply the staged loading concept. If rendering is
required, an off-site pick-up location is important, but
recognize that it’s contaminated and your vehicle will
be too. After all, the rendering truck has known expo-
sure to ‘sick pigs.’”
Although not a low-cost solution, both veterinarians
recommend prioritizing biosecurity when designing
new production sites/buildings or when remodeling.
“Sometimes changing behavior will only go so far
without a design change,” Johnson said.
Rethink the Clean/Dirty Line
with Staged Loading
Transporting live hogs presents a
significant biosecurity risk, with more
challenges than solutions. But “staged
loading” is a method that veterinar-
ians Derald Holtkamp is researching
and Clayton Johnson is applying on
some farms.
“It’s a low-cost fix, and a way to add
another layer to the process,” Holt-
kamp said.”
Here’s how it works:
The truck:
Inform the truck driver about the
procedures before arriving. Always
consider the truck dirty, so the first
dirty line is the back of the trailer.
The driver backs up to the loading
chute and can only enter the trailer,
preferably through a side-entry door.
You can require the driver to have a
side-entry, Johnson said. The driver
must change boots/clothes per farm
protocol.
The Chute:
The second dirty line is the last door
you can shut between the loading
chute and the barn/pigs, Johnson
noted. One person remains in the
loading chute to accept pigs from the
barn and to move them up into the
trailer. This person does not enter the
barn until loading is complete and fol-
lows all entry procedures.
The barn:
Two (or three) people in the barn
move pigs out of pens and down the
aisle to the door/loading chute. The
door will shut so pigs cannot backtrack.
The equipment:
Sorting boards, paddles, any equip-
ment needed to move pigs remain
within the assigned clean or dirty side.
“On many farms, this should be
relatively easy to adopt,” Holtkamp
said. “It’s not 100%, but it adds an-
other layer.”
Expanding on a
Tip from the Danes
It’s clear that people entering a hog barn
is a leading biosecurity risk factor. The
Danish bench system is one of the solu-
tions that U.S. pork producers, particu-
larly sow farms, began adopting about
five years ago.
Today, Derald Holtkamp has zeroed in
on a revised version that he has wit-
nessed as shown above.
“The first layer upon entry is a ‘booty
station.’ The person sits down on a chair
with their shoes on a rug and places a
booty over their shoe,” Holtkamp said
“They then step off the rug and repeat
the process for the other shoe. The
booty station serves as the first layer.”
From there, the person walks to a
bench, removes the booty-covered
shoes and swings their legs over the
bench to the other side, being careful
not to set their socked feet down on
the dirty side of the bench. Boot jacks
bolted to the floor allow shoes to be
removed without touching them.
“The bench serves as the second layer,
and finally, the shower is the third layer,”
Holtkamp said. “The key to all of this is
keeping the areas clean. The booty sta-
tion really helps with that.”
It All Hinges on People
Biosecurity training and auditing get a lot of lip service,
but what do they really mean?
“The important point is to train frequently and formally,
not just for new hires and not a topic over lunch,” said
Derald Holtkamp, DVM, Iowa State University. “Put it on a
schedule; otherwise it’s easy not to follow through.”
This is especially critical because of the labor shortage
and high turnover rates challenging agriculture today.
“When we talk about training, we’re talking about
changing habits,” said Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, DVM, Uni-
versity of Montreal. “Never underestimate the importance
of talking to employees and sharing knowledge.”
Also, remember that you’re training adults, he said.
“They want to know why you’re asking them to do some-
thing,” Vaillancourt said. “They want to know about disease
transmission and the impact on the farm, the animal and
themselves. After all, they’ll be dealing with the aftermath.
Give them tools to succeed. Establish markers so that you
can identify progress or where to make changes.”
Be sure to communicate often and thoroughly that every-
one matters.
“When it comes to compliance, we know that people
doing the most basic jobs tend to consider themselves so
unimportant that if they don’t follow procedures, it may
not matter,” Vaillancourt said.
Whether you talk about monitoring or auditing pro-
tocols, both involve observing, correcting the process if
needed and confirming what’s right. Also, audits have to
be done by someone with authority.
“The goal is continuous improvement, so it’s equally
important is to get feedback from people in the barn,”
Vaillancourt said. “Find out why something isn’t getting
done or working and be willing to make adjustments.”
Finally, have employees sign a form following training or
an audit, which further emphasizes its importance.
For more resources, go to pork.org/fad
How Has the Threat of ASF
Changed the Game?
“Even though African swine fever (ASF) is not now nor
ever has been in the United States, the expanded global
threat demands razor sharp attention,” said the Pork
Checkoff’s Lisa Becton, DVM. “On the plus side, steps
that we currently employ to prevent other diseases will be
important to protect against ASF.”
Of course, there are some additional steps that pig
farms are starting to put in place.
■■ No international visitors – It’s best not to allow any
international visitors onsite, says Derald Holtkamp,
DVM, Iowa State University. As for U.S. personnel
who have visited ASF-affected countries, five to
seven days of downtime is a must.
“It’s the showers during that time that are important,
because we know the virus survives a long time,” he
said. “Also, no shoes or clothing from ASF-affected
countries, even items that were not worn on pig
farms, can come onto a U.S. farm.”
Add a question to the visitors’ log specific to travel in
ASF-affected countries for anyone entering the farm.
■■ No pork foodstuffs on the farm – “ASF is different
disease-wise; it survives in processed and dried
pork for a long time,” Holtkamp noted. “Seriously
consider catering lunches as an employee benefit
and as a biosecurity measure; it gives you control.”
■■ Increased insect control – Although soft ticks
(Ornithodoros) associated with ASF transmission are
not a concern domestically, biting flies and ticks can
serve as a mechanical vector.
“We need to up our game on insect, pest and
rodent control,” Holtkamp said.
■■ Increased farm security – Consider perimeter fencing
and security cameras to monitor activity. At the very
least have gates that someone can’t simply drive
around and doors with keypad access, Holtkamp said.
Becton also advises building your farm FAD awareness:
■■ Know the clinical signs of ASF, and other foreign
animal diseases (FADs) and how to determine if
something is not right. (Available at pork.org/FAD.)
■■ Pre-Identify a herd veterinarian to contact and assist
if you suspect clinical signs of an FAD.
■■ Post important contact information by the farm
phone, including names of herd, state and USDA
veterinarians, in case of an animal health event.
“Have a current premises ID number for the site where the
pigs are located – not at a main office or house,” Becton
emphasized. “Use that PIN now for all animal movements
and lab submissions and sign up for the Secure Pork
Supply plan at securepork.org/.”
 Inside: With ongoing threat of African swine fever, step up biosecurity on your farm.
National Pork Board • P.O. Box 9114 • Des Moines, IA 50306
“We are definitely in a
better position today
than a year ago to deal
with the threat of African
swine fever.”
David Newman, National
Pork Board President
U.S. Vigilant as ASF Marks One Year in China
A year has passed since China acknowledged the presence of African swine fever (ASF)
in its swine herd. More than 40 countries have reported the deadly virus either in wild
or domestic pigs during the past five years, according to the World Health Organization for
Animal Health. Keeping U.S. pigs free of this ongoing threat hasn’t been easy, and doing
so successfully has taken an integrated, collaborative approach, according to National Pork
Board President David Newman, a pork producer who represents Arkansas.
“We are definitely in a better position today to deal with the threat of ASF than we
were a year ago,” Newman said. “That said, we can never be too prepared with a dev-
astating disease like this. What I like though is how our industry has pulled together over
the past 12 months in the spirit of collaboration to get the job done.”
The Pork Checkoff has taken a leading role in collaborating with multiple government
and industry partners to protect the United States from ASF. Primary partners in this
effort include USDA, the National Pork Producers Council, the North American Meat
Institute, the American Association of Swine Veterinarians and the Swine Health Informa-
tion Center. The American Feed Industry Association also has played an essential role on
feed biosecurity issues.
“Collectively, we’ve increased our defenses against ASF and other costly foreign animal
diseases,” Newman said. “When you consider our progress and what’s on the horizon in
terms of tools to help every U.S. pig farmer fight threats such as ASF, it’s reassuring.”
For producer resources and tools about ASF, including more tips on increasing your
farm’s biosecurity, visit pork.org/FAD and also search for “biosecurity” at pork.org.
This special-topic newsletter is sent periodically to you by the Pork Checkoff.
Editor: Jan Jorgensen JJorgensen@pork.org • Contributing Editors: Marlys Miller, Mike King
© 2019 National Pork Board, Des Moines, Iowa USA. This message funded by America’s Pork Checkoff Program.