 Biosecurity simply refers to all the steps you take to ensure your flock stays healthy. No flock owner wants to introduce disease in their flock, so let's go through some strategies to prevent expensive vet bills or death in your flock. Isolation refers not only to the physical location of your coop and flock, but also the separation of groups of poultry. Traffic control refers to the patterns of activity in your daily routine around the care of your flock. It also means keeping trouble out. Sanitation means keeping things clean on a regular basis. It may surprise you how easy it is to set up an effective cleaning regimen. Let's focus on isolation. Isolation means keeping your flock on your property and away from other poultry flocks. This may be a rare requirement in your particular area. You should also keep your older chickens permanently separated from any new or younger flocks. Older birds can carry diseases without showing symptoms. The same is true for new chickens that enter your flock. It is best to keep flocks and their equipment separated. You should always keep different species of poultry such as turkeys, waterfowl, gamebirds, or p-fowl permanently separated from your chickens. Several different diseases, including avian influenza, can be spread by allowing these species to mix. Some species carry certain diseases that are deadly to other species, so it is best to keep them separate. Wild waterfowl and shore birds can carry diseases and give them to your flock. It is best to locate your coop well away from water sources visited by migratory birds and waterfowl. Wild birds roost in trees. When they do so, they defecate where they roost and can spread disease to your flock through their droppings. In addition, wild birds can carry external parasites that can drop onto your coop and chickens. Let's move on to traffic control. Not just any person should be able to go in and visit your flock. Visitors should be accompanied by you if they have an important reason for coming into direct contact with your birds. Otherwise, they can look from farther back. You should jot down the name and contact information of people who absolutely need to come into contact with your flock on a calendar or in a notebook. That way, if an illness pops up in your flock, you can look back and recall who visited recently. To reinforce how important your flock is to you, post a sign asking visitors to come to the house before walking over to your coop. You can post something as formal as a biosecurity sign or something as informal as a request for all visitors to come to the front door first. Signs used together with locks can help ensure that only certain people gain exclusive access to your chickens. Well-meaning neighbors, family members, or friends may not understand the importance of biosecurity, but everyone understands a locked door or gate. It means that people should rethink how important it is to enter a coop or space used by your flock. It is also a layer of protection against thieves when you're not home. People are not the only things that can carry disease from one location to another. Car tires can do the trick too. So visitors or guests should be able to park far from the coop in order to avoid accidentally transporting disease to your flock. Your daily routine should not change much. Start by caring for the youngest poultry first and then move on to the older chickens. Avoid going in reverse as you may carry a disease from your older chickens to your younger ones. Care for your chickens before caring for waterfowl or game birds. Turkeys are an exception to this rule. Chickens can carry a disease that kill turkeys, so turkeys should be cared for before chickens. Do not move equipment around between different age groups without first cleaning and sanitizing it. The last visit of your daily routine or weekly routine is the disposal of your flock's manure. Some people use a compost pile while others spread manure thinly over pasture or lawns for fertilization. Either way, you should aim to separate your chickens from their manure in order to break the life cycle of certain diseases. Drying or composting manure quickly kills microorganisms, but is important to place your manure far away from your coops. You should also keep pets and neighbors in mind when deciding how to dispose of your manure and bedding. Last but not least, you can think about how sanitizing things around your flock can be a part of your daily routine. Foot baths are simple to put into practice and provide you and your flock with huge benefits. Visitors and family members should be taught how to use the foot bath before coming into contact with your flock. A few simple steps and some easily found pieces of equipment are all it takes to make a foot bath that you can use with your own flock. Keeping a foot bath around is a smart idea and shows how dedicated you are to keeping your flock healthy. You should always avoid borrowing equipment in case it has germs on it. Before using any new or borrowed equipment, it should be cleaned and sanitized first. If equipment for your flock is to be moved between species or age groups, then it should be cleaned and sanitized before and after it is used. Make sure to set aside one pair of boots or shoes to wear only when you are caring for your chickens and nowhere else. Depending on the season, you might want to wear a dedicated jacket or set of coveralls for working with your flock. A hat is always a good idea in order to keep dust, dirt and feather dander out of your hair. All of these things can carry germs as well as have the potential to stay in your hair and be transported elsewhere. Keep your dedicated clothing and footwear in a small covered container by the back door and wash items weekly. Insects, rodents and wild birds all have excellent histories of transmitting disease to chickens. Use different control strategies for each in order to keep these pests at bay. For example, remove bird feeders, bird houses and bird baths before getting chickens to prevent contact with wild birds. In addition, use a well-built coop in order to keep predators from attacking your flock.