Poultry Sprayer System Impresses USDA Officials

Jeff Schwan developed this sprayer to disinfect poultry trucks

Jeff Schwan developed this sprayer to disinfect poultry trucks

USDA officials say they are impressed with a disinfecting sprayer system for vehicles entering and leaving poultry farms that was developed by a Lavonia businessman.

Officials with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Atlanta office were in Comer, GA in Madison County Friday to view the system first-hand and to see how it works.

The system is currently in operation at Superior Shavings, Inc. in Comer.

Developed by Jeff Schwan of Farm Guard Systems, LLC, the sprayer system is designed to prevent the spread of the deadly Avian Influenza virus by spraying a mixture of Virocid and water over and under vehicles entering and leaving poultry operations.

This past spring, over 40 million chickens and turkeys in Iowa and Minnesota had to be destroyed when the virus was discovered in some birds at commercial poultry houses there.

Veterinarian Dr. Christopher A. Young is the Incident Commander of the USDA’S Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for the Southeast region in Atlanta.

He is also the Assistant Director of the Surveillance, Preparedness and Response Red Team for Georgia and Florida.

Young said he was impressed by what he saw.

I took a quick look at it and got a set of blueprints to share with folks in Riverdale, GA where they make those decisions for purchases and implementations on a larger scale,” Young said. “But from a concept, it looks very nice. Biosecurity is number one on the list and those truck washes work for that.”

Young said it is too soon to tell if the sprayer system is something the USDA would want poultry farms to implement, but he did say he liked what he saw.

Meantime, Young said there is a massive effort right now in the Southeast to increase biosecurity in order to prevent the spread of the Avian Flu virus this fall.

We’re working diligently on biosecurity preparedness in Georgia,” Young said. “The virus has not been found here in the Southeast and we would love for it to stay that way. But to be prepared is our best scenario.”

Young said there have been a lot of growers meetings recently such as with the State Veterinarian, Poultry Epidemiologists with the USDA, and Georgia’s Emergency Management Agency.

The Avian Influenza virus is spread by wild waterfowl which migrate in the fall and winter months, which is when the virus is active. It tends to die out in the summer with the summer heat.

So far, there have been no outbreaks of the disease at commercial poultry houses in Georgia. However, in June, the virus was confirmed on two private family farms in West Georgia. The virus was believed to have been brought in via chicks and eggs purchased from a poultry producer in Iowa last spring.

All of the chickens on both farms were destroyed.

Georgia is one of the largest poultry producers in the Southeast and poultry counts as the State’s largest agribusiness bringing in some $6-billion annually.