Biosecurity plan

Definition

A biosecurity plan is a farm’s written set of practices for keeping infectious disease out (external biosecurity) and limiting its spread within the herd (internal biosecurity or biocontainment). It is prepared with the herd veterinarian and covers people, vehicles, animals, equipment, feed, milk and carcasses.

Core parts:

• Zones: a line of separation (LOS) around the animal areas and, outside it, a perimeter buffer area (PBA). Movement across the LOS is controlled, with designated access points.
• People: visitor log, clean boots and clothing (farm-provided or disposable), hand washing, and a waiting period for visitors who have been on other livestock operations.
• Vehicles: keep milk trucks, feed trucks, renderers and cattle haulers outside the LOS where possible; clean and disinfect anything that must cross it. The rendering truck should never enter the animal area.
• New and returning animals: buy from known-health sources, test before or on arrival, and isolate in a separate pen for a set period before joining the herd.
• Internal controls: separate sick, maternity and calf areas; handle calves before sick cows; don’t share equipment between feed and manure; colostrum and milk handling to stop disease passing to calves.
• Vaccination and testing programs set by the vet.
• Pests and wildlife: rodent, bird and wild animal control around feed and water.
• Carcass handling (see mortality management).
• Outbreak response: who to call, how to stop movement, and how to keep shipping milk under a permitted movement plan.

The Secure Milk Supply (SMS) plan provides the US template for an enhanced biosecurity plan that lets farms keep moving milk during a foreign animal disease outbreak such as foot-and-mouth disease. The SMS enhanced plan names a biosecurity manager who writes and updates the site-specific plan, and includes a premises map showing the LOS, PBA, access points and cleaning and disinfection station. FARM’s “Enhanced” biosecurity tier is built on this SMS plan.

Since 2024, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI H5N1) in dairy cattle has added federal testing and reporting rules. As of November 2026 (USDA APHIS):

• The April 24, 2024 federal order requires testing of lactating dairy cattle before interstate movement and mandatory reporting of positive results. It remains in effect, but APHIS has since exempted lactating cattle moving from states with Unaffected State Status under the National Milk Testing Strategy from pre-movement testing.
• The December 6, 2024 federal order started the National Milk Testing Strategy (NMTS): raw (unpasteurized) milk samples nationwide are collected and shared with USDA for testing. Recent herd detections (e.g. October and November 2026) came from this routine milk testing.

State rules add to these; check with the state veterinarian before moving lactating cattle.

Unverified

Which states currently hold NMTS Unaffected status, and any state-level HPAI movement or milk-testing rules for the farm’s state. These change often; see APHIS’s NMTS state status page.

Requirements change; confirm the current rules with your vet, state animal health official or the program. This page is reference material, not legal advice.

How to pull it in DC305

DC305 holds part of the evidence:

• Purchased or returning animals: a purchase event (names like BOUGHT or PURCH) or arrival records, with source in the remark.
• Vaccinations: VACC or product-specific events.
• Disease and test results: health events, Johne’s or BVD test results as events or user-defined items.

EVENTS ID LACT PEN FOR EDAY>-90       events in the last 90 days, e.g. arrivals and vaccinations
EVENTS\2SI ID LACT PEN                prompts for the date range and which events

Select named events by putting the event name after EVENTS (e.g. EVENTS VACC ...), or use EVENTS\2SI, which prompts for the date range (\S) and which events (\I). Event names vary by herd; check the herd’s private dc305-vocab mapping.

The plan itself, the site map with the LOS and PBA, visitor logs, cleaning records and training are not in DC305; keep them in the farm’s SOP records and post the key parts at entry points.

Typical range

Herd context: US dairies, freestall or dry-lot; requirements as of the current SMS plan, FARM Version 5 and federal HPAI orders.

Item	Typical requirement or guideline
Written plan	Farm-specific, reviewed with the vet at least annually
Biosecurity manager	One named person responsible
Isolation of new animals	About 21–30 days in a separate pen
Visitor waiting period	Often 24–48 hours after contact with other livestock
Signage	Posted at all entry points to the LOS
Visitor log	Kept for every visitor crossing the LOS

Unverified

Isolation period, visitor waiting period and plan-review frequency are common guidelines that vary by plan and disease; check against the SMS enhanced biosecurity plan, the herd vet’s plan, and any buyer or audit standard. No fixed figures were found in SMS or FARM public material.

Common mistakes

• A plan that doesn’t match the farm. A template with no site map, no LOS and no named manager.
• Renderer and cattle haulers driving through the animal area.
• New animals put straight in the milking string, or “isolation” in a pen sharing a fence line, water or manure flow with the herd.
• No visitor log, or one that only records some visitors.
• Shared equipment: the same loader bucket for manure and feed, or calf bottles shared with the hospital pen.
• Feeding raw waste milk or untested colostrum from sick or treated cows to calves without pasteurization.
• Not updating for new threats. HPAI changed movement, testing and milk-handling rules; plans written before 2024 may not cover them.

Related

• Emergency preparedness plan
• Mortality and carcass management
• VCPR
• Third-party animal welfare audits
• Colostrum management