Protecting your farm from mycoplasma bovis

Be vigilant to protect your cows from mycoplasma bovis.

With a number of farms suffering drought, there is concern about the movement of animals for grazing or getting in supplementary feed from other regions.

Mycoplasma bovis has been discovered in a small number of farms in Southland, North Otago, North and South Canterbury and Hawke's Bay.

You can keep up to date by checking information for farmers on the MPI webpages: http://www.mpi.govt.nz/protection-and-response/responding/alerts/mycoplasma-bovis/ (this includes links to good biosecurity hygiene practice, DairyNZ resources, Beef + Lamb NZ resources and contact points for questions).

When bringing in supplementary feed:

* There is no risk of Mycoplasma bovis infection from bringing in hay or baleage from uninfected farms.
* Confirm the feed is coming from a farm under a Notice of Direction or a Restricted Place Notice and that it meets any conditions on the Notice.
* Vehicles coming on to your farm should be confined to the tanker track or main access track. Use your own vehicles to transport feed on the farm.
* Keep farm access tracks as clean zones by not moving stock across them, or allowing stock to graze in the track area.

When moving animals for temporary grazing:

* Check the off-farm grazing property's biosecurity health status. All Mycoplasma bovis infected properties are under Restricted Place Notices under the Biosecurity Act, restricting the movement of stock and equipment on and off those farms to contain the disease.
* Ensure the grazing property has good biosecurity measures in place, such as preventing your stock from having nose-to-nose contact with stock on the farm or neighbouring properties.
* When returning stock to your property, follow good farm hygiene procedures to reduce the risk of disease entering your farm.
* Treat any returning animals in the same way as new purchases.
* Keep your NAIT and other animal movement records up to date, including Animal Status Declaration (ASD forms) – this is a legal requirement in any case but enables tracing of disease.