Attending, or exhibiting livestock, at local, county and national agricultural shows, predominantly throughout the summer, is the highlight of the year for many livestock farmers.
However, attendance at these events – particularly those exhibiting animals – does carry a certain level of biosecurity risk for farms back at home.
The largest shows can see hundreds of thousands of people, and thousands of livestock, gather together, often for a number of days, before returning to their farms at home.
Unfortunately, this gathering and mixing of people and stock provides a significant number of opportunities for infectious agents to be transferred between holdings.
This can occur either through the direct mixing of stock at shows, or through the transport of infectious agents on people, vehicles or objects.
Livestock farmers will likely be aware that some biosecurity measures to prevent the spread of certain diseases are already in place at most shows.
These include the separation of MV (Maedi Visna) accredited and none-MV sheep, and the separation of cattle in line with the cattle health scheme diseases (Bovine Viral Diarrhea, Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis and Leptospirosis).
Possible modes of disease transmission at shows
Mixing with other stock
Often livestock at shows are housed in pens or cubicles directly adjacent to stock that have arrived from other holdings. They're then further mixed when exhibited in the ring for judging.
This provides opportunities for direct transmission between animals.
Shared housing and communal water supplies can also present opportunities for the transfer of pathogens through aerosol, oral, fomite and vector routes.
Passing infection on when returning home
The risk to livestock health is not solely limited to those animals being exhibited at shows.
Many diseases have an incubation period where an animal is infectious before exhibiting any clinical symptoms.
It's therefore important to consider the risk that infected stock returning home from a show could pass the infection on to other members of the flock/herd before any signs of infection are even visible.
Human interaction with animals, people and objects
You may not be exhibiting livestock, but many shows offer the opportunity for visitors to interact directly with livestock. Visitors can walk through the pens where livestock are housed and touch the animals, presenting the opportunity for disease agents to pass to hands, clothing and footwear.
Even if you do not interact directly with livestock at shows, contact with other people, vehicles and objects can be a source of infection that can be taken home.
Follow these steps to reduce the biosecurity risk associated with attending and exhibiting at shows:
Before the show
- Work with your vet to ensure that all vaccines are up to date. Have conversations about isolation practices throughout the show season to reduce the risk to your livestock.
- Ensure that all equipment (buckets, halters, combs, brushes etc.) and footwear are clean.
- Take feed that the animals are accustomed to.
- Ensure that the vehicles used to transport livestock are clean and disinfected.
At the show
- Where possible, seek to avoid nose to nose contact between animals from different holdings.
- If possible, consider taking your own source of drinking water for animals that are being exhibited and avoid sharing feed with other exhibitors.
- Avoid sharing equipment with other exhibitors to prevent the transfer of disease through these objects.
- Wash your hands if you come into contact with stock from other holdings.
After the show
- Stock that have attended shows should be quarantined away from the rest of the herd/flock for a suitable period of time when returning to the farm.
- Consider using different equipment and wearing different clothing when dealing with quarantined stock.
- Alternatively, attend to quarantined animals after dealing with the rest of your stock.
- Quarantined stock should be monitored for signs of illness regularly.
- Once home, wash or disinfect clothing and footwear before wearing them around the farm.
- Dispose of any left over bedding or feed that may have been brought home from the show.
- Vehicles used to transport livestock should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected upon return to the home farm.
- Ensure you follow the 6-day standstill. Visit: GOV.UK | When to follow the ‘standstill rule’
