Protective equipment and animal germs
I’ve previously written about personal protective equipment (“PPE”) for dairy farm workers in the context of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). Personal protective gear such as face masks and goggles, along with the typical water-resistant aprons and boots, has been recommended to protect the health of workers as they care for potentially infected cows – helping to minimize their risk of becoming infected with the virus themselves.
It’s not just workers facing HPAI that utilize protective gear every day, though. Almost everyone working around farm animals utilizes some type of personal protective equipment. Granted, sometimes the only “protection” desired from coveralls and boots is protection of people’s clothes and shoes from manure, slobber, and other livestock-based excretions. Astute producers, however, also know how those items help keep animals healthy.
Used properly, boots, coveralls, and latex gloves limit the spread of disease among an operation’s animals. The list of these diseases is lengthy, including ailments such as diarrhea in young calves, ringworm in show lambs, and Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome in pigs. The most important sources of these germs on a farm are animals sick from those diseases. As a result, a common recommendation for limiting disease spread on a farm (also known as “biocontainment”) is to change or clean those clothing items right after working with sick animals.
Even if there are no obviously sick animals on a farm, there certainly are germs – many of them just lying in wait for the right chance to cause problems. Commonly, older animals are sources of these germs, serving as healthy carriers of potentially problematic viruses, bacteria, and protozoa. Their previous exposures to these germs, and a more mature immune system, keeps these pathogens from making them overtly sick.
When a young or immunosuppressed animal contacts these carriers, severe illness can result. An example is calf diarrhea due to cryptosporidia. A six-week-old calf carries billions of cryptosporidia in their digestive tract yet stays healthy because of his age and immunity. Should a six-day-old calf encounter the germ-laden manure from this older calf, severe scours and dehydration results. Because of this phenomenon, changing or cleaning clothing between animal groups of differing age and immunological status is another good biocontainment practice.
These factors play into the establishment of an “order of work” on a farm: whenever possible, people should tend to healthy animals before sick animals, and young animals before older animals.
Boots, coveralls, and latex gloves only prevent germ transmission when they are removed or cleaned between those “dirty” and “clean” groups of animals. Wearing a single pair of latex gloves throughout the whole day doesn’t diminish germ spread unless they’re changed between animals or groups of animals; the same can be said for outerwear such as coats and coveralls. Changing into clean coveralls before working with healthier or younger animals is a great idea.
Footwear can easily track germs between animal locations, especially germs shed in animal manure. I am a proponent of rubber boots on farms since they are easier to completely clean compared to “street” shoes or boots. I am less enthusiastic about most boot baths used at barn or room entrances. Once boot baths are contaminated with dirt and manure, their disinfectant activity rapidly dissipates, creating the potential for boot baths to actually increase the spread of germs into a facility. Using two tubs, one to clean manure and dirt off boots and the other for soaking in clean disinfectant for a length of time, overcomes this problem.
Proper use of boots, coveralls, and gloves can also keep us and our families healthy. Some of the aforementioned animal germs can make us sick. Changing these clothing items frequently throughout the day means less time those germs spend on us, and less chance they somehow get inside our systems to cause illness.
I understand that many livestock producers downplay their own risk of themselves becoming sick from everyday animal germs. I do hope, however, they consider germ exposure to their family members, especially young children that do not have immune system experience with pathogens such as cryptosporidia or campylobacter. Getting a hug from a child while wearing dirty coveralls, or letting kids play around dirty clothes and boots in the house might seem innocuous but are common ways that farm kids get sick even before they’re old enough to do chores.
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