A ‘must’ in this day and age of ‘biological’ threats is bio-security protection for your livestock operation. And the Light Livestock Equipment & Supply company has just what you need!

Any time you have visitors on your farm, you will want to have a good supply of elastic-top boot and shoe covers available. (This is especially true if your visitors live on or have recently visited other farms with livestock!)

Farm owners such as Pam Welty of Silver Oak Farm Alpacas (www.SilverOakAlpacas.com) swear by many of Light Livestock Equipment & Supply’s products (www.lightlivestockequipment.com). Pam uses a disinfecting footbath mat, another popular bio-security product, for events like farm open houses, alpaca shows, and local fairs. The disinfecting mats work best for shoes and boots without heavy treads. (A boot brush can be used prior to walking through the disinfecting mat, in order to remove anything that could be tracked onto your farm and endanger your livestock.) A disinfectant solution is poured into the mat prior to use, and ‘Rival’ disinfectant is a good product for this application.

Tip from Pam: place your disinfecting footbath mat at a single access point, in a gated area, when folks are visiting your animals!

In addition to bio-security products, the Light Livestock Equipment & Supply has many other useful offerings, many of them geared towards the small ‘hobbyist’ farmer, as well as for larger farms. Their focus is on lighter-weight products, such as the very popular mesh panels & gates, as well has horizontal bar panels & gates.

These products are extremely easy to carry, assemble, and disassemble. And the ‘creep gates’ are designed to allow small (baby) animals in and out of gated areas, with built-in openings which won’t accommodate larger animals. (The web site even includes a video displaying the ease of connecting these panels and gates. Check it out!) Some uses for these gate and panel setups are: feeding areas for baby animals (also called ‘creeps’), immunization stations, quarantining of animals, weigh station enclosures, and for pens at livestock shows.

 

By C. R. Lindemer