Derald Holtkamp Iowa State University

Publish Date: June 16, 2022

What is biosecurity? Biosecurity can be subdivided into 3 parts: 1) bio-exclusion involves keeping pathogens out of a herd, 2) bio-management involves managing pathogens already in a herd to minimize the negative consequences, and 3) bio-containment involves preventing pathogens from escaping a herd and putting other farms at risk. Bio-exclusion will be the focus of this factsheet. Improving bio-exclusion requires taking time to identify the most significant vulnerabilities on farms to determine what should be done next. It starts with identifying vulnerabilities that can result in pathogens being introduced into a herd (step 1) and then prioritizing bio-exclusion control measures to address them (step 2). Historically, relatively little time has been spent on the first step resulting in slow progress in improving biosecurity.

Publish Date: April 9, 2010

This report is a summary of a larger project that analyzes the economic tradeoff between economic based pig space allocations and those based on growth performance. The most efficient economic allocation of space [1,2] is about six square feet of floor space per pig. Gonyou et al. [3] reported that the minimum space allotment that…