The terms below will help you better understand the importance of monitoring and managing wild rodents, bird and insects on farms because these pests can cause harm both directly and indirectly.
●Pest: This may include insects, rodents, wild birds, stray poultry, dogs, cats, and other animals not associated with the premises business activities.
○Biosecurity plans must include clear descriptions of how pests will be monitored and controlled on the farm premises on a day-to-day basis and during times when enhanced biosecurity is needed, like during an animal disease outbreak that impacts your farm premises.
●Pest intrusion: Occurs when insects, rodents, wildlife, wild birds, other domestic animals or pets enter an area on the farm.
○This intrusion may result in transmission of diseases to the commercial animals housed on the farm.
○Loose poultry that have escaped from the poultry houses are also considered pests as they may become exposed to pathogens once outside of their housing making it unsafe to return them to the flock from which they came. On many commercial farms, loose poultry will be disposed of in accordance with farm biosecurity policies.
●Vectors: the regular and specific agents that transmit disease-causing pathogens to people or animals. Diseases that are transmitted via a vector are called vector-borne diseases.
○In some cases, the vector may simply transmit the pathogen through purely mechanical means.
○In other cases, the vector may support growth and development of the disease-causing agent.
○Some commonly known vectors are fleas and ticks that transmit pathogens from one host to another via their bite.
○Pests can act as vectors and bring pathogens onto the farm spreading disease to the animals housed there.
○Some insect vectors, like mosquitos, fleas, and ticks, transmit disease though an insect bite that transmits the pathogen from the vector’s gut directly into the body of the animal, or host.
●Zoonotic disease: A disease that is transmitted from animals to humans in known as a zoonotic disease, or zoonoses.
○Biosecurity efforts that help keep animals healthy and disease-free will also help protect the farm workers and can also prevent contamination of the food products produced on the farm, such as milk and eggs. Protecting the food supply from contamination reduces the chances of a zoonotic disease being transmitted to humans from the farm.
○Two important examples of zoonotic diseases are West Nile virus that causes flu-like illness, but may also result in serious neurological infections including encephalitis (swelling of the brain) or meningitis. West Nile is a zoonotic disease that is vector-borne because it is transmitted to people through mosquito bites. Another example of zoonotic pathogens are Salmonella sp. which are a species of bacteria that cause salmonellosis in humans, a serious gastrointestinal disease. Salmonellosis is a zoonotic disease that is food borne, meaning that it can be transmitted to people who eat undercooked meat or eggs that are contaminated with Salmonella.
○ for more information on zoonotic diseases of concern in the U.S.
●Carrier: A living organism that moves a pathogen around without having a specific interaction with it.
○Asymptomatic also know as passive or healthy carriers are those who never experience symptoms despite being infected.
○A famous example of an asymptomatic carrier is Mary Mallon (1869 – 1938), who was nicknamed “Typhoid Mary
○” because she accidentally spread typhoid fever. She worked as a cook, and was infected with the bacteria Salmonella typhi but remained asymptomatic herself. She inadvertently spread this bacterium to other people through the foods that she handled.
●Fomite: An inanimate object that has become contaminated with a pathogen and is capable of transferring that pathogen between hosts.
○Some common fomites that may transmit pathogens on farms include workers’ clothing or boots, contaminated hoof trimming tools on a dairy, or vehicles used to haul feed around the farm that go between poultry houses on a poultry farm.
●Reservoir/host: The place where a pathogen normally lives, grows, and multiplies.
○In general, hosts/reservoirs include humans, animals, and the environment.
○Pests are a concern when creating biosecurity pla
