Disinfection

I’m admittedly not at home as I’m posting this as we are all still in Italy for 6 more days celebrating my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. Yes, yes…pain and suffering abounds. Just the same I thought I’d put up the photo below which I took last week the day before we left the farm.

This time of year as the majority of the herd gets kicked out of the barns and heads out to graze for the better part of 4 months, we get down to the serious business of cleaning and disinfecting the insides of all of the farm buildings. Particular care is given to the Arena’s pens where our maternity groups birth out. All of this cleaning is a fundamental part of our big picture strategy for controlling parasite loads on the farm. There are after all two things which can kill GI parasites in almost any form: A. UV light and B. high temperatures and unlike the blanket overuse of oral dewormers neither helps propogate the next generation of drug resistant super-parasites.

Specifically we use one badass steam cleaner & pressure washer (see inset) to clean out every inside stall/pen on the farm. Those pens at the Arena are then left completely empty for at least 3 weeks prior to any expectant females and/or newborn crias being allowed to live there. Combined with timely pre-natal fecal testing of all our expectant females and the treatment of only that minority which show an elevated parasite load, we’ve really managed over the past several years (knocking on wood as I write this) to keep things seemingly under control. The key being a combination of common sense and a little proactive management. After years of fighting the neonatal diarrhea wars (hey Discovery networks: there’s one boring reality theme you haven’t tried yet), we now seem to be just putting out the odd diarrheal flare-up instead instead of full blown outbreaks. All of which makes things like farting around the Tuscan countryside for a week+ while Kimberly holds the fort at home much more doable as well!

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