Bio-Security, what is that?

[Kapidolo Farms]

I have spent a few days on another forum, got bored with some rhetoric, and see that google for the most part recognized this forum and it's archives most readily. I am thinking if I'm going to post anything of merit, it ought to be here.

But I digress, some one banned from this forum expressed dismay about what is "Bio-security"?

A quick look at wiki by using the terms in one search like this on google "bio security wiki"

you get . . .

"Biosecurity is a set of preventive measures designed to reduce the risk of transmission of infectious diseases, quarantined pests, invasive alien species, living modified organisms. While biosecurity does encompass the prevention of the intentional removal (theft) of biological materials from research laboratories, this definition is narrower in scope than the definition used by many experts, including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.[1] These preventative measures are a combination of systems and practices put into its place at legitimate bioscience laboratories to prevent the use of dangerous pathogens and toxins for malicious use, as well as by customs agents and agricultural and natural resource managers to prevent the spread of these biological agents in natural and managed. Reference no. 123 ecosystems.[2] Although security is usually thought of in terms of "Guards, Gates, and Guns", biosecurity encompasses much more than that and requires the cooperation of scientists, technicians, policy makers, security engineers, and law enforcement officials. "

When I use the term "Bio-security" here on TFO, I mean the measures I use to prevent the spread of disease among my tortoises.

I have worked in food production, zoological gardens, and Bio Pharmaceutical companies where not following relatively simple rules or protocols can result in an actual loss of lives (people or animals), millions of dollars in work/research, and my job. For the most part it comes down to what you do with your hands, tools, and enclosures, their short history of use, and what order you do things in.

For me, it means not mixing species (live animals in one enclosure) or any items from those enclosures, or what I place in or remove from those enclosures.

If you have a single pen, inside or outside with a group of 2 Russian tortoises, for example, and no other reptiles, then for the most part you need only think about washing your hands, before and after you handle any animals or items from their enclosures. Like prepare their salad (if you make one) before you clean the old one from yesterday or change their water. That way the clean food is not 'touched' by soiled items, even though it is all one enclosure or system.

The more diversity you have of animals, and species, and even how long you have had the animals all come into consideration.

One key thing we have all in common is a quarantine period. This can be loosely defined as the time/procedures it takes to be assured the tortoises are healthy and disease free.

Over the past year I have purchased many Pancake tortoises. The first two from vendor "one" both were sub-adults and in my opinion low weight for their size.

At this point they will be in a room of their own relative to any other animals in my collection. I will seek to learn about the history of the animals from the dealer, but I don't let that guide my practice.

The box arrives from FedEx and my priority is to get the tortoises out of the box. I put on latex gloves (nitrile if you are allergic to latex), and place the up-opened box in a large trash bag. I cut the box open and take the bag with the tortoises out, but still held over the box, and immediately get a weight, then place the tortoise in shallow water, with a cover. The packing materials are moved away from over the box placed in a large trash bag.

Once to tortoises are soaking, I remove the gloves into the trash bag, seal the bag and into the trash it goes. None of the shipping materials are kept. It came from a dealer, it's soiled beyond cleaning.

As an aside, I remove the shipping labels, and more often than not, there is another older label underneath, so I know the box was recycle from some other animal shipment. Some other potential contamination, and poor business practice for the dealer to inform me of their other business.

So - now there are two pancake tortoises sitting each in their own shallow water, with a pre-soak weight. After about 1/2 hour I put on fresh gloves and re-weight, and note the feces that are almost alway going to be present in that soak water. I get to learn much here. Many dealers and private breeders fast an ani,al before shipping, the worms if present seem to more readily come out after a short fast. So I get a good first look to see adult worms if present, get an idea that indeed the tortoises were eating at all, and now have an idea by weight gain just how dehydrated they were.

I spray the scale off with straight non-sented ammonia (outside). I place each tortoise in it's own separate housing, which is where it will live for the duration of it's quarantine. This housing needs to be simple, and meet the needs of the tortoise.

Hides from cereal boxes are good and can be thrown away when soiled, newspaper as a substrate works well for many species.

A really good idea posted here by Baoh, is to use aluminum baking pans (like for turkeys), with a moist substrate for a hide and humidity, and then when you sort out if a worming regime is needed, you can bake it to kill any worm eggs, and still have a high humidity place for the tortoise each day.

I decided to use the pan for cooking the orchid bark in the hide, but use a sweater box with a hole in the side for the hide itself. For a water tray I like to use another sweater box or kitty litter pan with one side cut down to the height of one inch. This way when I clean it, I pick it up by tilting it back, and spill no water.

***********************

In review, Bio-secuity is the set of practices used to reduce disease transmission. The most important place to start is with new animals because without regard to the stories we hear from the source of the animal, if they bring disease into your collection, it's your responsibility to ensure no disease transmission occurs, not the source.

I have only commented on how I open the box and how the tortoises, in this case pancakes, are kept. I'll post more about my own protocols in following posts, please make additions of what you do.

Will

 

[Jacqui]

Great post! I look forward to more.

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I am thinking (with your permission) we should either make this a sticky here or perhaps even move to the advanced section. I think folks need to read this and really think how they do things.

 

[Zamric]

Excellent points!

 

[AZtortMom]

Great info! Thank you for sharing

 

[Shannon and Jason]

Yes, I agree thanks for sharing I really enjoyed all the information you provided and look forward to reading more

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

I'll seek to do better with my pre-submit button review, too many spelling/grammar errors, sorry for that. I keep the bag the tortoises were in over the box, so that any little thing that drops off, stays in the box, in the trash bag.

So, quarantine as a process is also part of bio-security. It is a best assumption that the tortoise(s) is carry something harmful, until you have evidence to the contrary. But the hitch here is you can not ever be 100% certain that there is NO disease. You can only be certain that there are no clinical manifestations (outward sign, or test results) of a disease.

Case in point, some times I work with NHPs (monkeys) and they carry all kinds of diseases, many that can skip to humans, of which some do not manifest as disease in the monkey, but will kill a person. A few of those diseases can be tested for, and the monkey's test could come back negative (does not have the disease). So, the question is, would I risk getting that terminal illness based on one negative, two negatives, three, five, ten? I don't risk it, but the good news is those monkeys that test positive are removed from the facility. And then there are no doubt diseases that the monkeys carry, that no one has figured out yet. Enough about monkeys.

So, the tortoise is sitting there in a somewhat boring enclosure, plastic tubs work great as they can be cleaned so readily, waiting for your acceptance that it is clean for introduction to same species in a larger more spacious enclosure with live plants etc. That first fecal from unpacking is in my experience the best time to see adult worms. A lack of adult worms does not mean they are not present. I don't like to treat without some knowledge of why I'm treating though.

I may have seen worms while unpacking, but if the tortoise will eat right away, I like to get them normalized to the new enclosure, and my routine. If they are eating, the worms can wait for a week or two. This gives two direct benefits. 1) the worming medication may best be introduced in food, so you or a vet does not have to gavage (Introduction of nutritive/medicinal material into the stomach by means of a tube) the tortoise, and 2) worming is a stressor to the tortoise - it just got shipped, maybe fasted, and now has a new enclosure and routine, the medication to kill worms and the gavage are just more stress.

Once worming begins, you should change all the substrate, and clean all the inside of the enclosure, change the water, and use that turkey pan to 'cook' the substrate in the humid hide - all of it, everyday. That is why we have a simple boring quarantine enclosure. And that is just for worms.

The worming "process" takes no less than 30 days from the first day of the first or single dose (debate elsewhere what that dose regime should be) until there is a high likelihood that all the worms and eggs in the tortoise are dead or expelled. This is a default method to assume the worms are gone. An active method would be to have a fecal exam done, and get a negative result. Three such exams, no closer together than 14 days, each result being negative, is very strong evidence that the worms have been eradicated.

Many people treat for worms prophylacticly (as a measure against worms without evidence) to be, as is said, 'on the safe side'. There are many other things that can be going on during the worming process, which if you treat with or without evidence, would start no sooner than the day you get the tortoise, but as I suggest maybe a week or two later. This means the tortoise may be in the quarantine enclosure for about 10-12 weeks. Longer is better (with diminishing returns) and will be discussed further, in another post.

A 'pro' to this regime is better assurance the tortoise is worm free, a 'con' is that a worm/egg may somehow escape your bio-secutity, and infect another tortoise elsewhere in your collection.

Be aware that people can also become infected with some of the worms that infect our tortoises.


So, here in this post I have described briefly what quarantine is, and a basic idea of the time period required, as well as some ideas about worming. These are protocols for considered under the concept of "bio-security".

Will

 

[tortadise]

All very good procedures Will. During the quarantine period, do you do nasal flushes and do you test blood? I feel I am going to start doing this for alle purposes as well, test against mycoplasma bacterias, or other infectious pathogens? I know it is extreme. But especially with species like pyxis, and other rare and endangered species possibly housed under the same roof. It does seem difficult to posses a perfect 6' minimum clearance(clarence haha) for each animal in common "quarantine" law or practice.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

On the idea of blood tests and nasel flush, I do not have as extensive a background as perhaps you do tortadise. Could you descride, the purposes and potential outcomes? It's my understanding for nasal flush, the diagnostic labs with that capability are few and far between, let alone vets that might implement proper handling. Blood test for chemistry is one thing, and may actually be thought of as routine, there are tables of standard value for many tortoise species. But a blood test for specific pathogens or their indications seem more rare for ability than nasal flushes.

On putting a "sticky" on the post or thread, do as you think best Jacqui.

I'll, elaborate more on in-quarantine procedures, here, as they relate to the larger collection of animals.

In the event that I acquire several hatchlings at once from a single breeder/clutch, I do not seperate them all into single housing. It has been my experience, that with several hides, and visual barriers, weeks old tortoises do better in groups at the food plate. Maybe some resource competion is at work, but they seem to feed better that way for me. As herbivores, I've not seen them try to eat each other. I've had hatcling box turtles eat each other, even in the presence of abundant food, but leoprads, pancakes, sulcata, this has not been an issue. I believe they follow example on eating, from each other, and in hatchlings it stimulates appetite.

Tangent to quarantine as a stand alone matter, the order of working your animals is important.

I put on fresh clean latex gloves. I prepare food before I touch any animals for the day. All clean handling items are used - items that have never been in contact with any animal, clean tub for mixing the salad, clean cutting boards, knife, measuring cups/spoons, whatever.

I make the salad, then I portion out all the food on clean single use paper plates, large lettuce leaves, or whatever I will use to distribute the salad.

Then I feed the most disease naive animals first (hatchlings), then long term established animsls, then those most recently out of qurantine, then those in quarantine - those which I know least best.

I do my best to place the food into each enclosure such that I don't actually touch any thing in the enclosure.

After all the food is distributed, I put on a new fresh clean pair of latex gloves. I will work the waters in the same order that I fed, most naive, longest term, shorter term, then those in quarantine.

For water dish handling I wash my gloved hands or replace the gloves from one enclosure to the next. Washing gloved hands is more effective than washing ungloved hands for making sure no microbes transfer from cage to cage along the way.

I dump the old water directly into a toilet, then rinse the dish in my tub, with a hand held shower head, spray with a cleaner (the dish, the shower head, the water handle, and my gloved hands), let stand for several minutes, then rinse well all cleaner sprayed items. The dish itself ought to be triple rinsed. This just means to cover the whole surface three times with the spray from the shower head.

Then place the dish back in the enclosure. I go through and clean all the water dishes before I fill any in the non quarantine room. When I refill the water dishes, I follow the same path, hatchlings, long term, then short term, then quarantine. Like feeding, the clean water jig does not touch anything in the enclosures, ever.

There are two point of view on working quarantine animals. One is that they should be done on different days than the non-quarantine animals, then the cross contamination issues are further reduced. Or do all tasking with non-quarntine first in one day, then quarantine second later that day.

When I do routine things like feed, I feed all in the above stated order, hatchlings, long tern, short term, then quarantine. I will not touch anything in the enclosure when I follow this order. For soiled water I will change then fill all the non quarantine, then do all the quarantine, with a glove change when I make that shift.

I do not change every water every day. Many times they do not even go in their water for a day or two at a time. Other periods, the water will be soiled several times in one day. I only change it when it is soiled, which is never less than every three or four days.

So, in this post I comment on order of tasking, from hatchlings which are the most naive from any disease organism, to long term animals, to shorter term animals, and then depending on your tasking preference, some or all tasking for tortoises in quarantine.

This could seem like a great deal of overkill effort. Once this becomes a pattern for tasking, it is easy, and I find myself more confident that I will not have one of these run away outbreaks of whatever which takes down entire collection in a few weeks.

Back in the world of BioPharmaceutical labs all this is what you do as daily routine. Every once in awhile some mouse room will test positive (bad) with some pathogen, that will alter experiment results, kill mice, and cause havoc. But then even stricter tasking and order is implemented, and those mice are often all euthanized, and the room sanitized, or sterilized. Most of us don't have rooms in our homes that can be hosed with harsh chemical cleaners, then rinse down with live steam. I will not euthanize a new group of 2.3 pancakes for some pathogen control effort. So for me this all seems like simple must do stuff.

Will

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

From Volume 1, Issue 1 of the San Joaquin Herpetological Society Journal, March/April 1992.

HERPS and BIO-SECURITY

Bio-security is a word that describes the precautions that are taken to prevent the spread of pathogens from affected organisms to non-affected organisms. The organisms in our reference are herps, their live food and herpetoculurists. Pathogens are agents that cause disease and can be found in four forms:

1) parasites,
2)molds and other fungi,
3) Bacteria and,
4) Viruses and viroids.

A Bio-security plan could be as simple as washing your hands with a good quality antiseptic soap before and after touching your animal or any of its material and before touching something else, including yourself. If you have one animal you still need to consider that some pathogens could transfer from it to you, or visa versa. Since many people have more than one animal, or groups of animals, the chance of pathogen transfer is greater.

Some pathogens can be carried by one animal without apparent signs or symptoms and can be transferred to another. As many pathogens from one geographic area can be carried in this fashion by native animals, you could witness an out-break in a collection even after a lengthy quarantine. The greater the number and diversity of animals you have, the more detailed a Bio-secruity plan or set of procedures will be required to maintain healthy animals. Most procedures will concern the use of different cleaning agents for your hands, the vivariums you create for your animals and how food and water are handled. Many terms describe cleaning agents and in any Bio-security program the proper use of chemical disinfectants is of utmost importance.

These chemical disinfectants (or antimicrobial agents) come in two basic modes of action.

1) "cidal" agents ( agents that kill the organism) and
2) "static" agents (agents that do not kill but only inhibit microbial growth).

I'll concentrate on the "cidal" agents that are normally used. A bacterial agent or bactericide kills bacteria and may or may not kill other microbes (i.e. virus, fungus, etc.). Cidal agents that affect a variety of microbes are called germicides. Germicides are divided into two groups, antiseptics and disinfectants.

Antiseptics are germicides that are harmless when applied to the skin (although not for internal uses). Disinfectants are agents that kill the microbe (but not necessarily bacterial spores) and are not safe for application to living tissue. Disinfectants are restricted to inanimate objects. A sanitizer is a substance that reduces the number of bacterial contaminants to populations judged safe for pubic health interpretations. Sterilization refers to the complete destruction of microbial life by chemical or physical processes.

It should be remembered that there is no perfect germicide! There are advantages and disadvantages to each disinfectant.

The two cleaning agents that most people have access to, that are very effective are Iodophors (Halogen compounds) such as Betadine "R" for use as an antiseptic as previously defined and chlorine (also a halogen compound) for use as a disinfectant agent as previously defined. Both of these agents' mode of action in killing pathogens is by having an affinity to bacterial protoplasm. Chlorine oxidizes enzymes and alters the permeability of bacterial cell walls and Betadine affect cell membranes and enzymes. Some disadvantages of chlorine are that you need a pre cleaned surface (i.e. remove organic build up prior to application), it corrodes metal surfaces has a strong odor, and will oxidize your skin and clothes. Betadine also needs to be used on a pre cleaned surface and if the vehicle for the beta dine or the item to be cleaned is neutral or alkali the microbial activity is minimal. Betadine or other iodine clears will stain clothes easily.

Some advatges of chorine are that in a slightly acidic conditions it will readily hell gram positive bacteria, bacterial spores, gram negative bacteria, both enveloped and non-enveloped viruses and has some activity against molds, yeast, and other fungi. Betadine is most effective at killing mold, yeast, and other fungi, but has almost no effectiveness on viruses. Betadine's effectiveness on bacteria is similar to chlorine.

Betadine type iodine antiseptics and chlorine's practical applications can be as follows. Betadine and similar generic iodine solutions come in soaps and lotions. The soap can be used right from the container to wash your hands or to wash an external wound on yourself or an animal. Do not allow it to get in your you or your animals eyes, nose, mouth or ears. Rinse with freshwater afterwards. The lotion can be applied and let dry in place or swabbed onto a wound.

Chlorine as belch comes in two concentrations, 4.5% and such as Clorox or as industrial strength at 7%. Either can be used in a solution with tap water. Solution strength recommendations vary from one tablespoon per gallon of water to one cup per gallon, while exposure methods range from a simple dip and rinse to 20 minutes of constant exposure (submerged). For my use I thourougly wash the item with tap water and a 3M green scrubbing pad. Then I use a spray bottle to apply undiluted bleach to the entire surface, et it stand for a few minutes and then rinse.

As with all chemical uses and applications always read and follow lable use recommendations while implementing your Bio-security plan.

William Espenshade

******************

Today, 17 April 2013

So, the is sorta unusual for me to read after 21 years when I first wrote it. At the time I was a field service manager for a poultry company based in Fresno CA, and they had all managers attend several short lecture/seminars on these topics. One ranch of chickens is worth a great deal of investment, and they did to want pathogens being transported from ranch to ranch.

I now use lots of rubber gloves, wash my gloved hands and change the gloves often. It's more effective, and uses less chemicals. I use ammonia in alternate uses with bleach (yeah yeah yeah, NEVER mix them) as ammonia has different properties for protozoans, a pathogen class not specifically mentioned in this past text (hidden as parasites). Both chlorine and ammonia are now only used on non-porous surfaces. Things with porous surfaces are simply replaced. I don't use the 3M scrubbers anymore, they make lots of micro abrasions that host all those damn bacteria. I use soft clothes and lots of soaking to dislodge any kind of adhering 'stuff'.

In commercial applications of sanitizing animal cages, a great deal of attention is placed on mechanical removal of all gross debris, exposing all surfaces to a soap with a strong surfactant (for spreading across entire surfaces) then rinsing with acidic and then alkali solutions. last a quaternary ammonia spray then rinse with plain water greater than 180F.

If you don't have a $250,000 dollar continuous flow cage wash at home, approximate it. Remove gross debris, wash with dish liquid, rinse, spray with vinegar and/or alcohol, rinse, and then spray with either chlorine OR ammonia. This level of cleaning is done when some item is going to go from use with one animal to another. NOT daily cleaning while animals are in the cage. This degree of cleaning is for large rubbermaid tubs, or the inside of enclosures that have non-porous surfaces. I prefer to do this level of cleaning outside on a breezy day, while I stand up-wind.

Will

 

[wellington]

Great info. I too, think this should be sticky'd Most probably don't even think of half this stuff that should be considered being contaminated. I only received one tort. If I ever get another, I will as cautious. Thanks. Waiting for more and more

 

[sibi]

Great procedures to keep things from contamination. Most I've done as a clean freak, but others you mentioned are new to me and make a lot of sense. I will look forward to reading more. Thanks Will.

 

[tortadise]

Will in regards to the nasal flush and blood work. I see this as a level of comfort that comes in the form of necessity to me. If any animal should be placed with a group or even opposite sex to be paired with. Mycoplasma and herpes can be evident in animals but not show any sign of distress. This is one reason I like to do these tests prior to placement with other specimens. I also recommend cloaca swabs as well to test for coccidias. Some strains of coccidia can be seen through microscopic fecal analysis but many cannot. Thus being a level of my quarantine process to do blood panels, cloaca swabs, and of course individual quarantine keeping for any obvious symptoms or weird behavior linked to even a URI. Its supposedly a far fetched and over the top sort of thing. But with as many species and specimens I posses I feel any form of bio-security as you described is none the less a must do for any logical person to add animals to a collection. It takes 1 animal to infect many if these measures aren't taken. great thread and love your procedures.