Poultry Biosecurity

What products are sold from/leave a poultry operation?

• broiler operations

  • market birds

• layer operations

  • eggs

• breeder operations

  • eggs for incubation

• poultry litter

• bird carcasses

• feed trucks

Are there any federal disease programs for poultry?

No

What foreign animal diseases are of concern for poultry?

• high path avian influenza

• Newcastle’s Disease (enzootic)

What respiratory diseases do poultry encounter?

• mycoplasma

• infectious bronchitis

• infectious laryngotracheitis

• fowl pox

• infectious coryza

What enteric diseases do poultry encounter?

• coccidia

• salmonella

• necrotic enteritis (C. perfringens)

• E. coli

What reproductive diseases do poultry encounter?

• infectious bronchitis

• ovarian tumors

How are birds introduced to disease?

• horizontal transmission

  • bird-to-bird

  • mechanical carriers

    • people

    • equipment

    • incubators

• vertical transmission

  • pathogen incorporated into reproductive tract

  • pathogen passed with egg

  • developing chick becomes infected

What aspects of a poultry operation are high risk?

• ALL bird facilities are high risk due to horizontal disease spread in large populations

• hatcheries are a concern due to potential infection of young chicks

• transportation of chicks is a high risk activity

High risk visitors

• anyone with exposure to birds of any kind

• vehicles delivering feed

• vehicles transporting eggs, chicks, or birds

Poultry disease control methods

• primarily focused on disease prevention

  • limited use of antimicrobials

• vaccination → hard due to high density of birds

• good management

• biosecurity activities

General biosecurity practices

• geographic location of farm - other poultry facilities, aerosol risks

• proper barn design - ventilation, space, feeding, water, bird vermin control

• positioning of equipment - clean vs. dirty areas

• well-designed operational protocols

• flow to and from farm:

  • people

  • materials, feed

  • eggs

  • flocks

• identify potential sources of infection (i.e. people, equipment, feed, other birds)

• cleaning and disinfecting between bird populations → all-in, all-out approach

• water supply quality

Breeder biosecurity practices

• highest priority for poultry biosecurity

• source of pedigree birds for industry

• maintain highest level of biosecurity

• pathogen status monitoring

• extensive vaccination program

• specific risks

  • introduction of males

  • different chick sources

Broiler biosecurity practices

• rapid bird growth and turnover

• use all in/all out approach

• cleaning and disinfection of units between groups

• specific risks

  • “thinning” where crew comes in and removes a portion of the growing birds to account for space for remaining birds

Layer biosecurity practices

• biosecurity will depend upon the type of housing system used

  • caged housing system is easiest to control disease risk in - but there is a welfare concern

  • free-range has highest disease risk

• specific risk

  • intermixing of aged animals in house

  • red mite infestation - carrier of bacteria and viruses

Hatchery biosecurity

• eggs from different breeder farms are collected and processed to generate chicks to be distributed to other farms

• disease control focused on:

  • incoming diseases (vertical)

  • cross-contamination (horizontal)

• hatching methods

  • multi-staging - intermixing of eggs from different farms

  • all in/all out - easier system to clean incubators between hatchings

Hatcheries - routing biosecurity

• 5 stages

  • egg handling

  • incubation

  • transfer

  • hatching

  • chick handling

• establish clean egg vs. dirty chick zones

• unidirectional workflow

• environmental sampling for pathogens