Broiler Farming Biosecurity
As soon as anyone goes into intensive farming, they deal with disease on a constant basis. So cleaning is essential for keeping a flock healthy and prevent disease from spreading.
What You Need to Do When Cleaning a Chicken House
Most farmers use an all-in-all-out system, in which birds are grouped together according to the age when they arrive on the farm and kept together during the whole of the production cycle until they leave the farm.
Buildings are thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before and after a group has finished their production cycle, to prevent diseases from spreading from one group to another. Sick birds are removed immediately and dead birds are buried to prevent the spreading of diseases.
The main bacteria that Manchem checks to ensure its chemicals are effective against, are for E. coli, Salmonella and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa which basically cover the bacterial range and have a direct effect on the health and food standard of the birds.
If this bacteria is not killed, the impact will result in high mortality, slower growth, weak chickens because they are riddled with disease. A diseased chick cannot perform the same as a healthy chick. So it is absolutely essential to start with a clean house.
And there is no short cut when cleaning is concerned. There is no one product that does it all. There’s very specific steps that need to be followed to ensure to have a thoroughly clean house at the beginning of the next cycle.
The time needed to clean a chicken house thoroughly should be a minimum of 7 days. By shortening the cleaning period runs the risk of disease.
The 6 steps in the Cleaning Cycle
- Assessing the situation
- Dry cleaning
- Washing
- Disinfecting
- Evaluating the cleaning efficacy
- Terminal fogging