Biosecurity Plan
Biosecurity means taking precautions and having a standard operating procedure in place in case an infected animal is discovered on your property. It is an essential part of maintaining your herd’s health as well as the profitability of your operation. You need an overall biosecurity plan for your farm or ranch, AND you need to implement specific security protocols or actions for each location where you raise livestock. You need a plan for each place. Even if you practice some informal common sense biosecurity measures now, this plan is needed to make your farm as safe from disease as possible.
A plan will allow you to determine the measures needed to set up a comprehensive biosecurity program to protect your herd in the best way possible. Development of this plan involves all partners and employees, and it must be written down. Each year, the plan should be reviewed and updated to keep it current. For the plan to be effective, everyone must be able to understand it, use it and enforce it. The plan should apply to everyone, every day.
To design your plan, first consider the ways that common diseases are spread. Include a standard health protocol which documents procedures necessary for maintaining animal health and husbandry, as well as specific methods to identify, separate and treat sick animals.
Road Map for Developing a Plan
Get started by assessing your operation’s potential risks for diseases, and gather information about your farm/ranch and livestock you raise. The graphic below shows some steps you can take in constructing your plan.
Tips for Building Your Biosecurity Plan
- Remember planning is a process. Start where you are now.
- Implement a few important things first; add more later.
- Determine what will or will not fit the daily routine.
- Plan ahead with protocols that everyone on the farm and visitors will need to follow if an outbreak occurs.
- Include a process for observing and monitoring herd health, and for reporting unusual or suspicious signs.
- Be sure to communicate to employees and visitors about your biosecurity protocols, and how they can comply.
Useful Documents for Developing a Plan
Get started by assessing your operation’s potential risks for diseases, and gather information about your farm/ranch and livestock you raise. The graphic below shows some steps you can take in constructing your plan.
Biosecurity Assessment
The first step for planning is to assess where your farm is currently at, in terms of risks for disease introductions and biosecurity protections. Assess the risks with this handy checklist before creating your plan.
The assessment is in PDF format.
Plan Example
Use this example as a guide for filling in the blanks of your biosecurity plan. The appendix includes visitor and animal movement, employee training, emergency contact list and animal health records forms.
This example plan is in PDF format.
Plan Template
You may use this template and fill in with your own wording. This is the same template as the example plan, without any guiding text. The appendix includes the same forms also. Print out as many copies of the forms as you need.
The plan template is in PDF format.
Crisis Communication
A producer should be able to communicate in a crisis to several different stakeholders. Learn more by visiting the USDA’s Healthy Farms/Healthy Agriculture Crisis Communications page.
The template is in PDF format.