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48 pages of practical information
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Making disinfecting attractiveGetting people to disinfect boots and shoes before entering the farm, either as visitors or walkers, is not easy. Nobody really wants to put their feet into a bowl of smelly chemical which clings to them for the rest of the day. Most people believe they could never be carriers of a disease such as
Foot and Mouth, in just the same way that some people even in the
medical profession somehow believe that the bugs on their hands are
benign.
Some people pose a far greater disease risk than others. Boots which have travelled from one livestock farm to another are far more likely to carry organisms than shoes which have spent their lives shopping on the High Street.
Feet, however, present a real danger. If one thinks about it, the dangers of disease being spread by contaminated shoes is probably equal to, if not sometimes greater than the risk from tyres. People generally walk far closer to stock than they drive, and it is extremely difficult to remove muck from the soles of working boots. Yet often one will find a greater concentration being given to vehicle tyres than the footwear of those in it.
The standard systems for disinfecting footwear have major disadvantages.
  
Disinfectors need to be easy to use by one person, economical with chemical, and effective in covering the boot or shoe. Power jetting puts chemical where it's not needed (up the trouser leg and into the boot) and there's a problem re the run-off. Chemical pads soon beome filthy in a farm situation, put out a lot of odour, and need recharging frequently in dry, hot weather.
Pad type disinfectors that are positioned on the side of the pathway or lane are too easy to ignore.
Disinfectors that are on the ground can look unattractive quite quickly. If there's dirt on the surface and the chemical looks filthy, the chances of it being used are reduced. It looks like something which is going to spread germs, not kill them.
To make disinfecting really attractive you need an application machine which looks like something high tech from the hospital which uses chemical that smells like Chanel No 5!
Upright disinfector made for a few ££s
  .jpg) 
Picture 1
This machine which was written up in Farm Ideas Autumn 2003, Vol 12, Issue 3 has many features that overcome the drawbacks of the pad type unit.
Instead of putting feet onto a chemical sponge, a pair of brushes is used to apply the chemical to foot wear. The brushes are mounted in a frame so there's a 2.5in gap between them. The chemical is held in a 25 litre barrel held on a frame, and the chemical is added to the brushes by a tap and a hose.
The tap used is a standard plastic water one, but "a gas one might be better" says David Kershaw, the farmer who made it. There's no need for the tap to provide a high flow, as its function is to apply more chemical to the brushes, not wash muck off boots.
The main advantages are:
* less chemical evaporation and smell
* large tank contains a supply that will disinfect a very large number of shoes and boots
* the unit is obvious and difficult to ignore
* mobile and self contained so can be placed wherever is appropriate at the time
* made from scrap, apart from a pair of brush heads - £3 or so.
The idea is that boots are cleaned prior to using the brushes, but when the brushes get dirty they are easy to hose down. Fitting a second set of brushes with a hose nearby would allow the machine to do both jobs, cleaning and then disinfecting.
Picture 2
Here is a design feature that controls the chemical and spreads it evenly over the brushes could be made using the diagram above. Chop the top of the drum so you can turn an edge up and get your hand inside to fix a tapping at the bottom of the side, and fix a drum tap to this. Then have the liquid flow into a cross piece that turns up slightly on either side, with each shoulder the same height. When the tap is opened the flow will be equal either side, and then this can go to a T on the bottom to distribute the chemical evenly along the brush head.
The flap on the drum top can be pushed down and so reduce evaporation, and flipped up for filling if need be.
The disinfector was designed by a Doncaster farmer who grows cereals and has a pig unit.
Did you find this useful?
Send any comments to editor@farmideas.co.uk
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