Integrated disease management key to flock health

Effective shed biosecurity practices help prevent pathogens from spreading, ensuring a healthier laying flock.

To minimise the risk of pathogens entering your poultry sheds, follow these simple but effective biosecurity tips.

Foot dips:

To maintain high biosecurity standards, it’s essential to properly manage foot dips, which play a crucial role in preventing pathogens from entering poultry sheds.

Ensure the following practices:

All boots are free from muck and mud when dipped.

Shed-specific biosecurity protocols:

To prevent disease transmission between sheds, it is recommended to have dedicated shed-specific:

Monitoring and record-keeping for early poultry disease detection

Regularly monitoring the flock is critical for identifying early signs of disease and enabling proactive treatment. 

Maintaining a detailed health record-keeping system allows you to track changes in the flock’s performance, such as increased mortality, which could indicate a potential disease outbreak. By spotting these changes early, you can take action sooner to prevent disease spread in your poultry flock.

Limiting the number of people who come to the site, and implementing a strict visitor protocol, including a visitor log, is a crucial part of protecting the whole farm environment from pathogens.

Livestock and feed lorries should be disinfected on entry to the yard to prevent disease from being spread between sites, with care taken to treat the wheels and undercarriage.

Effective rodent control in poultry sheds

Rodent control is a critical component of biosecurity in poultry sheds, as these environments can easily attract rats and mice. 

Although rats on UK poultry farms rarely carry Salmonella, they can harbour and amplify other infections on farms, spreading pathogens to neighbouring units and posing a biosecurity risk.

Top tips for preventing rodents in poultry sheds

To keep rodents out and maintain biosecurity standards, follow these essential steps:

When using rodent bait, carefully follow the instructions on the label to ensure accurate dosing and compliance with the CRRU (Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use) guidelines for safe and effective rodent control.

For further guidance, DEFRA offers detailed information on preventing and controlling rodent infestations on poultry farms.

A well-planned vaccination protocol forms the final piece of the poultry disease control triangle. 

In-water vaccinations are an ideal way to efficiently vaccinate large numbers of birds with minimal stress. 

However, to maximise vaccine effectiveness, it’s crucial to follow best practices in administration.

Priming the lines correctly, dosing accurately, and making sure the water quality is high enough not to interfere with the working of the vaccines are all important factors.

To achieve optimal disease protection for poultry flocks, it is also important to ensure the birds receive the correct vaccine dose and that it is administered at the right timings.

Top tips for effective in-water poultry vaccination