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

Prepare all footbaths

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Sec foot bath farrow au 1

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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Sec foot bath cover

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

Security feet dipping

Truck boots clean

Security foot bath and scrape dirty

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

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