Isolation Facilities - General Procedures
Criteria for approval of an isolation facility with respect to general operational procedures.
Criteria for approval of isolation facilities
General operational procedures
- Any person including visitors entering the Isolation Facility must wear protective clothing and footwear and use the disinfectant footbath at the entrance.
- Any unused feeding stuffs, fodder, and bedding intended for animals in the Isolation Facility must remain in the isolation facility while there are animals present. This must not be moved back to the main herd/flock until all animals in the Isolation Facility have completed their period of isolation.
- All equipment, pens, and hurdles in the Isolation Facility must remain there until the 6 day isolation period has been satisfactorily completed. After all animals have left the Isolation Facility, all equipment, pens, and hurdles must be cleansed and disinfected.
- While animals are kept in Isolation Facilities, vehicles should not be taken into fields or buildings used as Isolation Facilities unless doing so is necessary for husbandry or welfare reasons.
- In the event that such vehicles are taken in, for example to move animals off, the wheel and wheel arches of the vehicles must be cleansed and disinfected before those vehicles are used in circumstances where they may come into contact with or close proximity to other animals.
- Special rules apply to any lactating animals that are in these isolation facilities. The welfare of these animals must be safeguarded and it may be necessary to take these animals to a milking parlour on the farm if other means of milking them cannot be found. The following conditions apply in these circumstances:
- The animals in isolation must be brought into the parlour after any other resident stock have been milked and have been returned to their accommodation or fields. A minimum of 3 metres separation must be maintained between the resident animals and the animals in isolation.
- Any farmyards, the parlour collecting area, the parlour itself and the milking equipment (for example clusters) must be thoroughly washed down after the animals in isolation have passed through. A “full standard wash cycle” must be applied to the milking equipment in the parlour after the isolation animals have been through and before it is used again for the resident lactating animals.
- The animals in isolation must be returned to their own accommodation immediately after they have been milked.
- The owner or person in charge must advise anyone (for example hauliers) handling animals brought onto the on farm Isolation Facility of:
- Which animals are to be held in the Isolation Facility;
- The rules, which apply to the Isolation Facility.
- Farm records must be kept of all animals kept in the approved Isolation Facility. This should include the serial numbers of movement documents of all animals moved into or out of the Isolation Facility, (copies of these movement documents should be retained), the date of entry into isolation and the date of removal from isolation. These records will be checked during any subsequent audit of the Isolation Facility.
- Farm staff and visitors should be made fully aware of these conditions.
- A record should be kept of all people visiting the Isolation Facility.
