RECORDING | Biosecurity on dairy farms

VIEW THE RECORDING

When people mention biosecurity, they almost always use the poultry and pig farms as the ideal model. Those systems work well for an enclosed piggery or poultry house, but it is impractical for a 200-hectare open grazing dairy farm.

Dairy farms will be used as an example of how to apply biosecurity since, as cattle farms, they already practice biosecurity to a much higher level than they suspect.

It is merely a case of ensuring that these simple measures are applied and that they are applied correctly.

The focus of this webinar will be on the 3 legs of biosecurity namely:

  1. How do you prevent diseases from entering your farm?
  2. How do you prevent diseases from spreading on your farm?
  3. How do you prevent diseases from spreading from your farm to others? 

More about our speaker:

Dr Mark Chimes
Dairy Standard Agency

Dr Chimes qualified as a veterinarian at Onderstepoort in 1986. He spent the first 30 years in private practice, of which 13 years were spent in the UK. In 2013 he joined Deltamune laboratory as their ruminant technical advisor. Deltamune offered laboratory testing for disease diagnosis as well as analytical tests for the dairy industry. In addition, they also produced vaccines for production animals.

In 2016 he joined the Dairy Standard Agency (DSA) where he has been auditing dairy farms to ensure compliance with quality and safety standards. These audits assist the farmer to also comply with animal welfare and biosecurity standards. Through the audits, Dr Chimes visits more than 150 dairy farms a year. As a result, he has an intimate knowledge of various dairy farm management systems.