Infectious diseases and food safety pathogens can enter or spread within a poultry farm in many ways.

The main methods of disease spread on or between poultry farms is through:

• contaminated people
• contaminated vehicles and equipment
• wild birds
• feral animals, domestic animals, insects and vermin
• other poultry
• feed and water
• litter
• air.

Contaminated people

People who visit your poultry farm and enter the production area (including sheds and free-range areas) can potentially be carriers of disease and food safety pathogens that may threaten the health and productivity of your flock.

Diseases or food safety pathogens may be carried in a person's:

• hair and hands
• clothing
• footwear
• personal items such as mobile phones and jewellery.

Visitors can include neighbours, contractors, suppliers, vets, delivery drivers, maintenance and service personnel.

To reduce biosecurity risks from visitors you should:

• shut the gate to your property and lock whenever practical
• place a biosecurity sign at the entry gate that contains information on how to contact the farm manager before entry
• check where your visitors have been and if they have had any contact with other poultry or birds in the last 2 days. If visitors have been overseas this may increase to 7 days.
• keep a visitors log outlining details of visitors' name and date and recent contact with poultry
• restrict access to your poultry unless necessary
• provide protective clothing, footwear and handwash for visitors that come inside your production area
• ensure that visitors sanitise their hands, wear protective clothing and clean and dip each foot in a footbath containing disinfectant before entering sheds and range areas
• ensure to replace the footbath when dirty.

Showering before entry and changing into freshly laundered clothes and farm boots, and then showering out, is the highest level of protection for poultry production facilities. If visitors have had recent contact with other poultry, this option should be used.

Contaminated vehicles and equipment

Vehicles and equipment are a high risk for spreading pathogens. To reduce this risk:

• only have 1 entry point for vehicles
• have a designated visitors parking area that is well signed and located outside of the production area
• don't share equipment between properties—if this is unavoidable, make sure that ALL equipment is cleaned (removing all visible dirt) and disinfected before and after use
• never share or re-use cardboard egg fillers or cartons
• don't allow delivery vehicles to come inside the production area—if this is necessary such as for feed and gas deliveries, then drivers must NOT enter sheds or ranges
• thoroughly clean and disinfect all housing, sheds and equipment between batches
• clean and flush drinkers and feeders regularly
• clean and disinfect egg grading and washing equipment after use.

Wild birds

Wild birds and waterfowl can be carriers of diseases and food safety pathogens, such as avian influenza and salmonella. Keeping a poultry farm free of wild birds may be difficult.

To make the property unattractive to wild birds:

• only plant trees and shrubs that are non-flowering or non-bird attracting
• limit the amount of surface water on the farm
• make sheds that house poultry wild bird proof
• only provide feed and water for your flock indoors.

Feral animals, insects, vermin, domestic livestock and animals

Insects, such as darkling beetles, and rodents can be carriers of infectious diseases and food safety pathogens such as campylobacter and salmonella.

In all poultry farms, it is important to:

• have a rodent control plan in place that is regularly monitored and baits replaced as required. Bait stations should be positioned around the outside of the sheds and range areas and should not be accessible by other animals
• clean up any feed spills as soon as possible and keep the property neat and tidy with grass mown around sheds and range areas
• store feed and bedding in a vermin proof area to avoid contamination from rodents and wild birds
• treat insects with approved chemicals
• fence the range area with stock proof fencing to keep out livestock and feral animals.

Do not:

• allow domestic animals inside poultry sheds or range areas. If using guard animals in free-range situations make sure they have been tested to ensure they are not carriers of disease before placing them with your flock.
• graze livestock immediately surrounding the poultry sheds and range areas.

Other poultry

New birds are the most common way to introduce disease into your flock. To reduce disease coming in with new birds you can take the following measures.

• Have an all-in and all-out policy (single-aged flock). This allows time to clean and disinfect all housing and equipment before new birds come in.
• Obtain new birds from a reliable supplier of healthy stock and request vaccination certification.
• Only buy young birds, as older birds are more likely to carry disease.
• Dispose of dead birds in an environmentally approved method. If collected from a contractor, have your storage and collection point located as far away from the sheds and range as possible so that the collection vehicle does not enter the production area. Never feed dead poultry to domestic animals.
• Quarantine new birds from your existing flock for at least 1 month as you may spread disease from one to the other. Watch for any signs of illness, lice or mites.
• If exhibiting birds, make sure you do not take any birds to a show if there are any signs of illness in your flock, even if the birds you are taking appear well.

Feed and water

Feed and water can also be a source of contamination. Disease carrying rodents or wild birds may contaminate feed, while droppings and excretions from wild birds or waterfowl may be the source of contamination for open water sources such as dam, tank and river water.

Any water used for drinking, shed cooling and range irrigation on a poultry farm must meet the microbiological standards specified in the National Water Biosecurity Manual for Poultry Production (PDF, 1.8MB). All surface water and any other water that doesn't meet this standard must be appropriately treated, for example by chlorination.

To reduce biosecurity risks associated with feed and water contamination:

• always source feed from reputable suppliers
• have all water used for poultry tested
• treat all surface water and once treated, store it in a closed system, from the point of treatment to the drinker to prevent re-contamination
• check and record chlorine and treatment levels daily.

Find out more about poultry feed, nutrition and water.

Litter

Litter can introduce food safety and disease pathogens onto a property. In particular, wet litter can encourage the growth of food safety pathogens. To reduce the risk of litter being a source of disease:

• purchase litter from a reputable supplier and have it delivered in clean, disinfected trucks
• don't source litter from treated timber
• source litter from a clean, dry, biosecure storage site, free from contamination by rodents, birds, animals and residues
• reduce wet litter by managing drinkers, ventilation systems and working litter as necessary.

Air

Having a good buffer distance between other poultry farms and piggeries will help to reduce any impact from airborne spread of disease. The minimum distance should be at least 1km between other poultry farms and at least 5km from breeder farms.

Planting non-bird attracting trees and shrubs as strategic windbreaks can also act as a barrier.

Also consider...

• Read the National Farm Biosecurity Technical Manual for Egg Production (PDF, 2MB).
• Read the National Farm Biosecurity Manual for Chicken Growers (PDF, 2MB).
• Find out about Environmental Guidelines for the Australian Egg Industry.
• Read about the National Environmental Management System for the Meat Chicken Industry - Version 2.
• Learn about farm biosecurity from Biosecurity Queensland.
• Find out about farming practices for healthy flocks.
• Farm biosecurity posters are available from the Australian Egg Corporation Limited (refer to 'Biosecurity posters' at the bottom of the page).

A biosecurity plan documents the various biosecurity risks within and outside of your property and outlines measures to manage these risks. Having a plan in place will help to minimise the introduction and spread of infectious pathogens and disease, and in turn help protect the productivity and profitability of your business.

Your biosecurity plan should include:

A property map

On your property map, identify your boundary, and then mark out your production area boundary which is the area where your sheds and range areas are. The first line of defence against disease entering your property is by having a secure boundary. Many online mapping resources are available. These can be used to look beyond your property boundary to see where other poultry farms are located and the distance between farms.

An outline of the production stages

Draw a flow chart of the production stages of the business and the potential biosecurity risks that could occur at each stage. These will vary depending on the production system.

The Poultry Hub has examples of layer (egg) farm sequences and meat chicken farm sequences.

What your inputs are (i.e what enters your farm)

Identify what comes onto the farm. Anything that enters the farm has the potential to introduce disease and food safety pathogens.

Some examples of what may enter a poultry farm include:

• poultry
• water
• people
• pests–wild animals, vermin, insects
• bedding material
• feed
• vehicles
• drinking and watering equipment
• egg flats, cartons and fillers
• other animals–domestic pets and domestic livestock, other poultry.

It is important to identify, control and monitor all movement onto and within your property by animals, people, vehicles and equipment as they are all potential risks.

What your outputs are (i.e what leaves your farm?)

Biosecurity is also about preventing the spread of pests and disease off the farm. Identifying your farm outputs will highlight any potential ways that disease and food safety pathogens could leave the farm. Examples include:

• eggs
• spent hens
• mortalities
• meat product
• live animals
• litter
• manure
• people
• vehicles.

Measures to manage the risk of biosecurity matter entering your farm

Biosecurity matter is disease, or a pathogenic agent that can cause disease. Disease and food safety pathogens can enter and exit a farm in many ways. It is important to identify the location of all entry and exit risks and to have procedures in place to reduce or manage these risks. The main risks of disease spread are:

• contaminated people
• contaminated equipment and vehicles
• wild birds, wild animals and vermin
• domestic animals
• poultry movement
• feed and water
• air.

The Biosecurity Act 2014 has more information about biosecurity matter.

Keep records

Keeping routine records is important for production and performance purposes, and also demonstrates that you've met your general biosecurity obligation.

Always keep records of:

• deliveries including feed, gas, egg flats
• visitors including contractors, service people and vets
• vaccinations and medications administered
• water usage
• water quality, chlorine levels and any treatments
• feed consumption
• shed conditions
• mortalities
• bird movements, including new or replacement birds and spent hens
• sales (i.e. where your birds, eggs, or meat are sold)
• rodent control
• staff training.

A range of biosecurity records templates and examples are available from Farm Biosecurity.

Also consider...

• Read the Farm Biosecurity toolkit and find resources for biosecurity planning.
• Use the Farm Biosecurity Action Planner to help assess the risks on your farm and take steps to address them.
• Learn more about farm biosecurity from Biosecurity Queensland.
• Watch a series of biosecurity related educational videos from Farm Biosecurity.

There are increased biosecurity risks when operating a free-range poultry system, due to more exposure to potential sources of disease and food safety pathogens. Some of the greatest biosecurity risks to a free-range operation are wild birds and animals, rodents and airborne infection.

Additional biosecurity measures

In free-range situations, you may need to implement additional biosecurity measures such as:

• having facilities available to be able to lock birds indoors at night to protect them from inclement weather, predators and exposure to wild birds
• making sure that vegetation (e.g. planted trees for shade, vegetation buffers and shelter belts) minimise wild bird attraction. Alternatives to trees on the range are structures covered with shade cloth or shade sails
• only using treated water for range irrigation
• providing feed and water for birds indoors
• keeping grass on the range area short and don't let it seed as long grass can attract wild birds and rodents
• minimising the amount of open water sources on the property and do not have any dams located within the range
• keeping different animals separate—don't keep poultry and other livestock or other species of poultry on the range together
• ensuring the range drains well so water doesn't pool or puddle
• regularly removing manure from outside hatch openings and cleaning the ramps from poultry housing to the range.

Sick birds

Prevention and management are the most important factors in disease control.

If you identify sick birds in your flock, remove them from the main flock immediately and obtain a diagnosis from a qualified person as soon as possible.

Many diseases cause similar signs and it can be difficult to make an accurate diagnosis. When a disease is identified, the right treatment can be given. In some situations, the best course of action may be to humanely destroy sick birds.

If a large number of birds have died or are looking sick, you must call Biosecurity Queensland immediately on 13 25 23.

Good management

You need to constantly monitor your flock for signs of disease. All poultry producers have a duty of care under legislation to ensure the welfare of their flocks.

Good management should include a health program with plans for adequate nutrition and timely execution of husbandry procedures, such as vaccinations.

You must use agricultural and veterinary chemicals, including disinfection and sanitation products, according to label instructions. For example, to produce safe eggs, producers must observe withholding periods to avoid chemical residues in eggs.

Emergency animal diseases

Emergency animal diseases that affect poultry can affect large numbers of animals and have the potential to severely impact Queensland's poultry industries. In the event of an outbreak, an emergency response is required to restrict any further spread of the disease.

Emergency animal diseases that affect poultry are avian influenza and Newcastle disease.

Control

Diseases are more easily treated and controlled if they are detected early. In the event of a suspected emergency animal disease outbreak, an action plan must be put in place. The plan should include:

• the circumstances when an alert should be raised
• who to contact (e.g. veterinarian, Biosecurity Queensland)
• what high level biosecurity measures need to be activated, such as quarantine procedures.

Do not remove any animals from the property. This will help to reduce the risk of disease spreading and allow authorities to test for disease or examine in a post-mortem. The Queensland Government does not charge for investigations into suspected reportable disease incidents, even if the result is negative.

Report an unusually large number of dead or sick animals to Biosecurity Queensland on 13 25 23 or the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.

Also consider...

• Read more about emergency disease information.
• Visit Farm Biosecurity for more information and resources on keeping your farm free of pests and diseases.
• Find out about emergency animal disease responses with AUSVETPLAN.
• Learn about monitoring animal health using sample testing.
• Read about Newcastle disease management.