Biosecurity

Responsible behaviour by the public

When exercising access rights, you can help to maintain animal health and biosecurity by:

• never feeding or directly contacting farm animals
• taking all litter away with you, including any food and packaging
• leaving gates as you find them
• keeping dogs under proper control and removing dog faeces, and
• not parking your vehicle in a field where there are farm animals.

Cow and sheep droppings can carry diseases, such as E. coli, which can then be passed on to humans. Although the risk of catching such diseases is very small, they are most likely to arise if you picnic or camp where there are farm animals, or if you do not follow good hygiene practice (for example do not drink water from local streams or burns).

Responsible behaviour by land managers

Give consideration to access rights and well-used paths when positioning stores for slurry or other waste, or providing animal feeding sites, if this could readily be done elsewhere on the farm.