Disease Prevention on the Farm: Personal Hygiene

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- Livestock producers are responsible for keeping their animals healthy.

We give them food, water, and exercise.

There are some other steps that we can take to ensure our animal's health as well as our own.

One important step is for us to have good personal hygiene in and around the farm.

Humans can become ill from contact with animals or insects.

Likewise, animals can get sick from contact with humans.

Diseases that can spread between humans and animals are called zoonotic diseases.

In some cases, zoonotic diseases do not affect the animals that carry them, but can affect humans when we are exposed.

In other cases, humans act as a carrier of diseases between animals.

So how do zoonotic diseases spread?

First there has to be a pathogen present.

Pathogens are what we call the agents that can cause disease.

Zoonotic pathogens can be bacteria, like salmonella, or viruses which cause things like rabies or influenza.

They also can be protozoa, such as giardia and toxoplasma.

Parasites, like roundworms, or cryptosporidium, or fungi, for example, ringworm.

As livestock producers, you face a higher risk because of your close work with animals.

Various activities we do on the farm can spread the pathogens that spread zoonotic diseases.

Thankfully, good personal hygiene can lower the risk of this happening.

Here are some pathways of exposure that we can curb with attention to personal hygiene.

Direct contact with animals is one pathway.

This includes things like petting, grooming, handling and milking.

Exposure can also occur through products from those animals, like handling feces or placentas when assisting with deliveries.

Indirect exposure to pathogens can occur through contact with raw meat products, or contaminated soil or water.

These factors can also contribute to humans spreading diseases among other animals.

Pathogens that remain on clothes or hands can be carried to other animals as you move among them.

In many cases, even over long distances.

Which brings us to our final point.

Some simple hygiene practices you can use to protect yourself and keep from spreading pathogens to animals.

One of the best ways to protect yourself and your animals is as easy and inexpensive as washing your hands.

Wash your hands any time that they may have been contaminated.

This means after touching animals, interacting with sick animals, when leaving an animal area, after using the restroom, before eating or drinking, and before preparing food.

Also keep in mind that clothing, boots, and towels can be sources of contamination.

Wash your hands after placing dirty barn clothes or rags into the washing machine.

Also be sure to wash your hands if you use them to remove shoes or boots you wore in the barn.

To make sure that your hands are washed thoroughly, use clean warm water.

Apply soap and lather for at least 20 seconds.

How long is 20 seconds?

You can sing "Happy Birthday" two times through to make sure that you have scrubbed long enough.

When you scrub, be sure to get the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and around your fingernails.

Then rinse with clean water.

Finish by drying with a clean paper towel or an air dryer.

When working with animals, use personal protective equipment like Nitrile or latex gloves, face shields, protective sleeves or waterproof aprons.

In these images we just saw a minute ago, notice the people who are protected with gloves.

Just remember that gloves can be contaminated in the same way that hands can be.

Cover open cuts or wounds with a waterproof bandage or glove to prevent pathogens from entering your body through the wound.

Finally, don't forget about our responsibility to protect our animals from the diseases that we can transfer to them from other farm animals.

Going to visit another farm?

A livestock auction?

A fair or a livestock show where you may be exposed to other animals?

Wear disposable boot covers or be sure to change or disinfect your boots before reentering your farm.

Also change into clean clothes or coveralls before being around your animals.

The potential of spreading diseases between animals varies by species as do the recommended practices to prevent this.

Now you know what zoonotic diseases are, how normal farm activities can spread them and how to protect yourself and your animals.

The bottom line is keep yourself and your livestock healthy by practicing good personal hygiene.