Prevent and Manage Disease on Dairy Farms
When it comes to pests and diseases on a farm, every farm and farmer is at risk. Although diseases can be transferred indirectly on clothing, vehicles, and equipment, the main risk to stock is animal contact.
SteriGENE is approved by MPI as a surface sanitiser. However, it can have more practical uses for hygiene, disinfection, and disease control and management on the farm.
Diseases Spreading Through Farms
As diseases can spread throughout the farm and to other farms, it’s important to minimise traffic on the farm to ensure only vehicles that need to travel around the farm are and ensure the vehicle are kept clean. Cleaning and disinfecting vehicles and equipment when traveling between properties is a great way to prevent diseases from spreading between farms. This could include spraying wheels and tires when exiting one farm, and before entering another with SteriGENE, if you are traveling between farms regularly.
Disinfecting tools and equipment
Be sure to frequently clean and disinfect anything that comes in contact with livestock or birds thoroughly. SteriGENE has non-corrosive properties so it is safe to be used on tools and equipment around the farm to kill various bacteria, fungi, viruses, moulds, and spores. After you’ve disinfected surfaces, equipment, and tools, SteriGENE stays active and continues fighting diseases for up to 3 months. Although we do recommend using SteriGENE again if a surface is soiled. There is no pre-cleaning required. SteriGENE doesn’t deactivate when it comes in contact with dirt on a surface, so it cleans and disinfects.
Hygiene Practices
It’s important to observe basic hygiene practices around the farm, especially washing your hands thoroughly and often. Wash your hands with Vetsep Hand scrub to disinfect your hands before entering and after exiting the livestock area. Vetsep Hand Scrub also includes skin emollients to prevent your skin from drying out with frequent use. It is also effective in removing odors, so you can rid your hands of livestock smells.
If you’re traveling around the farm without access to warm water, you can also use hand sanitiser to tie you over, until you’re able to access water.
Separate clothing and footwear should be worn when working around different animal species. We’d also recommend the use of a high-quality laundry disinfectant to ensure any lingering diseases are effectively killed and removed from your clothing in your next laundry load. Footwear can also be sprayed down with SteriGENE to kill diseases that may be lingering and prevent them from being carried around the farm, or to other farms.
Footbaths
SteriGENE is a great product to use in disinfecting footwear for farm workers and visitors. Footbaths are used to clean dirt off boots and disinfect them to manage and prevent the spread of diseases around the farm.
Unlike other commonly used disinfectants in footbaths, SteriGENE remains active for up to 6 months when diluted. It also doesn’t deactivate when it comes in contact with dirt or other organic matter. Although, we do recommend refreshing the footbath regularly, especially if there is a large quantity of organic matter in the footbath, to ensure you’re getting the full effect of the SteriGENE disinfection.
SteriGENE: A Clean Green Disinfectant
Testing of SteriGENE shows it attained 116% degradation after 28 days.
This is due to an increase in the number of viable micro-organisms in the “test material vessel” as a result of its readily biodegradable nature. The micro-organisms utilize the test material as a carbon source for cellular growth, this results in a greater number of viable micro-organisms.
The increased number of micro-organisms caused an increase in respiration rates and therefore, background CO2 growth was greater. This increase in background CO2 resulted in biodegradation rates in excess of 100%.
Biodegradability testing on SteriGENE products proves that it completely degrades in the environment after 28 days. This puts it in the company of fruits and vegetables, ie it is proven to be a clean green disinfectant. SteriGENE is not only tough on germs while being kind to surfaces but also completely biodegradable, hence friendly to the environment.
Reference: Technical Bulletin No. 270 TriGENE Advance- Biodegradability Test, SafePharm Laboratories Ltd, Shardlow Business Park, London Road, Shardlow, Derby DE72 2GD United Kingdom.
More information on farm hygiene practices, as recommended by MPI:
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