Go back to
Go back to
Animal BreedingOn the mention of disinfectants for stables, generally, one could assume that disinfecting barns is pretty straightforward. Muck out and clean the hutch, choose a stable disinfectant, dose and apply it. The stall is now disinfected and that’s that. Unfortunately, properly disinfecting a stall or disinfecting animal sheds is a little more complex and prone to pitfalls than this.
Stable and kennel disinfectant, disinfectants for stalls and cages, such as rabbit or chicken cages.
If a stall was insufficiently cleaned before being disinfected, residual organic matter and protein will have an enormous impact on a disinfectant’s effectiveness. Frequently, the cause is overly long intervals between cleaning cycles, resulting in caked dirt that is difficult to remove.
Additionally, it is often the case that no soaking time is scheduled when cleaning the stall with pressure washers. This can be quite easily avoided if the dirt is soaked first when cleaning the stall – ideally with an alkaline, active foam. When working with pressure washers, care should be taken not to re-contaminate cleaned surfaces while sluicing away the dirt.
It is important to select a stable disinfectant that is suitable for the respective task. For example, there is a difference between combating viruses and combating coccidia. It is therefore absolutely essential to check whether the livestock disinfectant is suitable for the task at hand. Using the wrong disinfectant is not only ineffective, it is also a waste of money and resources.
As a rule, oxidising disinfectants such as Sanosil disinfectants for stalls are less problematic when it comes to gaps in effectiveness, temperature sensitivity, toxicity and protein contamination. However, they tend to be more corrosive on metals than a non-oxidising disinfectant for animal housing.
If the concentration of the stall safe disinfectant is too high or too low when disinfecting stalls, the consequences can be serious. Underdosing encourages resistances and accelerates natural selection among microorganism populations, resulting in one (or a few) species becoming dominant.
By contrast, overdosing may increase damage to materials and health, resulting for example in irritation due to disinfectant concentrations being too aggressive. Most of all, using excessive concentrations of disinfectants in stalls is simply inefficient. Dosing aids and automatic dosing devices can help solve this problem.
Impatience is usually the biggest culprit in this scenario. When disinfecting stalls, all surfaces must be wetted carefully and completely, as otherwise there is a risk of gaps in coverage. Thermal fogging, a popular application, is very spectacular and very easy, but has only minimal effect in grooves, drains and even on minor layers of dust (think preliminary cleaning).
Wet disinfections are therefore far superior, for example with a low-pressure sprayer and extendable lance, which literally submerges the walls of a stall in the stall disinfectant. This reduces pathogens at a much higher rate than thermal or cold fogging systems. Consequently, it is important to weigh up the cost versus the prospects for success when disinfecting stalls with a horse stall disinfectant for example.
Low temperatures are a critical point which deserves attention when disinfecting stalls with disinfectants for stalls. As a rule, low temperatures slow down the action of all disinfectants. The required reaction times must be increased substantially when temperatures are low. The drying times and waiting periods until the stalls can be occupied again are also longer.
Ideally, when temperatures are low stalls are either pre-warmed and/or the water is heated. However, it should be noted that hot water may reduce a stable disinfectant’s stability, so it is a good idea to apply it quickly in such cases.
