Advice to Farmers
Foot and Mouth on the farm
Foot and Mouth Disease can affect all cloven-hooved animals such as cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, llamas and deer.
The virus is naturally transmitted by direct contact with animals and animal products. The virus can also survive outside a host for a limited time and can be spread through human and mechanical activity as well as being airborne. Infected animals can spread the virus simply by breathing, and the virus is also present in their nasal discharge, saliva, blood and fluid from burst blisters.
Animals can be contagious for up to four days before they show any signs of the disease. They can also act as carriers without showing any signs of Foot and Mouth .
Foot and Mouth rarely kills adult animals, but because recovery is often prolonged and infected animals spread the disease rapidly, quarantine combined with the slaughter of affected animals is often the only viable method of control.
Protecting your farm
The New Zealand Government is committed to taking every possible step to prevent Foot and Mouth entering New Zealand but farmers must be prepared and able to move swiftly in the event of an outbreak.
All New Zealanders need to take the threat of Foot and Mouth very seriously, and farmers are very important in ensuring New Zealand is kept free from Foot and Mouth. Farmers and rural residents can help prevent an incursion of Foot and Mouth.
What to do
1. Keep a close watch for symptoms of Foot and Mouth:
Cattle
Slobbering and smacking the lips; Shivering Tender feet with sores and blisters; Raised temperature; Reduced milk yield and sore teats
Two day old ruptured blisters on tongue, lower gum and lower lip of a steer
Deer
Symptoms are generally mild: Raised temperature; Lameness and depression; Blisters in and around mouth and hooves; Off feed
steers foot
Sheep and Goats
Sudden and severe lameness, with a tendency to lie down Raised temperature Blisters on the hoof and mouth Generally off colour
Two day old lesion on dental pad of a sheep
Pigs
Sudden lameness, with a tendency to lie down; Raised temperature; Squealing when attempting to walk; Blisters on the upper edge of the hoof (where skin and horn meet); Blisters on the snout or tongue; Off feed
Blisters on snout of pig
2. Report any symptoms immediately to MAF by calling the emergency hotline on 0800 809 966
3. Update and keep detailed records of stock movement on and off the property (starting now)
4. Be sure to adhere to standard biosecurity measures such as disinfection of farm equipment
Dealing with overseas visitors
If your visitor has been in a foot and mouth infected region and is returning to a farm in New Zealand, then as an added precaution do not allow them to go near livestock on the farm for seven days from the time of last contact with animals or infected places in a foot and mouth region overseas.
This is the length of time the foot and mouth virus could possibly survive outside of a host. MAF recommends that people who have been in heavily contaminated environments (on infected farms) not contact animals in New Zealand for at least seven days since contact with the heavily contaminated environments. FMD transfer by humans occurs by two possible means: on clothing and footwear, and in nasal passages. Risks associated with clothes and footwear are managed by ensuring cleanliness and disinfection (which is managed by MAF at the NZ border). Risks associated with carriage in the nasal passages are managed by the seven day stand-down recommendation. This is an extremely conservative measure: the data indicate virus carriage in nasal passages of humans only occurs for up to 28 hours.
The length of time the FMD virus survives outside a host varies greatly, depending on the medium, temperature, and pH. This has been well-studied, and there is a great deal of data on survival in different products. In some circumstances, survival may be for a number of months.
Page last updated: 7 August 2008