6 Key Prevention Steps | Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

Last Modified: April 09, 2025

Know the Risks

Biosecurity is about taking steps to lower the risk of bringing a virus onto your farm or spreading disease.

Create a Routine

A few simple biosecurity habits can keep your pig healthy before, during, and after the show.

Prevent the Spread

These habits are important to your success and can prevent African swine fever (ASF) from spreading to other pigs.

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Step 1: Limit on-farm traffic.

This includes neighbors and visitors. Understand who is coming onto your property, including people, vehicles, and equipment.

Step 2: Require visitors to wash hands and wear clean clothes and shoes on your property.

As the virus can stay on clothing and other materials, this step limits disease spread for anyone coming onto your farm.

Don’t let anyone who has been in an ASF-affected country onto your property for at least 5 days after returning to the United States.

Step 3: Clean and disinfect all equipment and vehicles entering or leaving your site.

The virus can stay on vehicles and equipment. Check with your veterinarian about specific cleaning and disinfection suggestions.

Step 4: Prevent contact between your pigs and wild pigs.

Feral swine pose a big risk of carrying ASF and other diseases. Secure your pigs’ pen from such contact.

If wild hogs mix with backyard or pet pigs, it could be deadly.

Step 5: Store feed where wildlife cannot access it or contaminate it.

Don't garbage-feed your pigs, and make sure they can't eat or scavenge trash. These are potential ways to spread ASF.

Step 6: Prohibit anyone from eating in animal areas.

The ASF virus survives for extended periods in pork and pork meat products—even when they are cooked—and can be a source of spread. Keep all outside food products to a specific area of the facility away from animals.