Disinfectant Management – Foot Baths
Foot baths can be a positive internal biosecurity tool but need to be
properly managed
Foot baths must be filled with disinfectant at the right concentration |
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Prepare all footbaths |
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Mark all empty footbaths
with a clear mark indicating a known depth – 1.5 litre mark shown for example |
Prepare disinfectant in a
pre-measured scoop to provide the required concentration - for a 1.5 litre
foot bath (for example) |
Place the footbath in a position
where rain water is not going to dilute the disinfectant |
Filling and maintaining footbaths |
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Clean footbath completely Place water into footbath
to the mark – in this case 1.5 litres |
Use a measure scoop to add
disinfectant volume to provide the required concentration. Mix well |
Cover the footbath to
prevent rain water diluting the disinfectant or evaporation during the summer |
Correct use of footbaths |
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Place footbath in a logical
position which is not going to get in the way of feed barrows |
Only place clean boots and
utensils into the disinfectant |
Disinfectant do not clean
dirty equipment and cannot kill pathogens protected by faeces |
Footbaths are not good
ways of disinfecting boots as it takes several minutes to total immersion to
kill pathogens – changing boots between departments is a better method |
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Footbaths and disinfectant
is a good way of killing pathogens on clean utensils – however, always have different
utensils for each batch of pigs. |
Disinfectants are extremely expensive and must be used
appropriately