Strict biosecurity measures are required to maintain freedom from economically significant diseases and parasites. Assessing the risk of disease outbreaks and adopting appropriate strategies can reduce the chances of introducing diseases that affect productivity and profit. If a disease is introduced, take action immediately to control or eradicate it.
Some important and highly transmissible health conditions affecting sheep include:
- footrot
- lice
- ovine Johne’s disease (OJD)
- ovine brucellosis
- drench resistance.
Use the Diagnosis, control and eradication of footrot, lice and OJD tool to help recognise these important diseases and avoid their introduction.
Keep in mind that drench resistance can be introduced to a property through sheep who are infected with drench-resistant parasites, as well as created within the on-property worm population. Use the Management of worms tool to design a program to minimise the effect internal parasites have on sheep.
To minimise the risk of introducing disease to a property, observe quarantine and induction periods during which existing sheep are not exposed to new sheep. As a general rule quarantine periods should be 21 days.
Avoiding introducing diseases and pests is the gold standard – sheep will be healthier and more productive, and it’s more cost effective than treatment.
A National Sheep Health Declaration can help to assess the risk of disease when introducing new sheep into a flock. The National Sheep Health Declaration, which includes disease history, template can be downloaded from the Farm Biosecurity website. Sheep producers must provide a signed National Vendor Declaration (NVD) for all sheep or lambs they offer for sale or slaughter and insist on a correctly completed copy when buying sheep or lambs. A signed NVD declares that the owner of the sheep has met the basic on-farm food safety requirements of the Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) program.