Scrub a dub dub
4 02 2007
We’re taking three pigs to the abattoir on Tuesday morning and that always means a lot of extra work on the Sunday before. First, the pigs have to be brought in to the byre, making it easier to control their final feeds and load them on Tuesday morning. Then the trailer has to be thoroughly checked for defects, scrubbed inside and out, and disinfected before a final rinse. I use a heavy duty commercial washroom detergent and a stout broom to clean the trailer - it’s much cheaper than agricultural detergent, kills the same bacteria and lifts the dirt just as well.
It’s very important to get all the mud out of the tyres, from underneath the mudguards, and from between any gaps in the bodywork or the underside of the floor. Mud can harbour bacteria and viruses, and stop the disinfectant penetrating.
After the trailer has been thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed with a power washer, I spray every inch of it with an agricultural disinfectant and leave it to soak for at least 15 minutes.
Again, it’s important to disinfect the tyres and underside thoroughly. After the disinfectant has soaked in, the trailer is rinsed off with the pressure washer as the disinfectant is very strong - even when correctly diluted - and could give the pigs chemical burns. Once the pigs are loaded on Tuesday morning, I’ll give the trailer a final, external disinfection with particular attention to the wheels, tyres and ramp. When we return from the abattoir, the entire procedure will be repeated in order to prevent any contamination from the abattoir being brought on to the croft. We also do the same before and after every trip the trailer takes off the croft to maintain good biosecurity. It takes a while but the effort is worth it.
[...] even more imperative that both the Land Rover and the trailer are thoroughly checked, that both are disinfected before we leave and again on return, that we have food, water and handling equipment to handle any [...]