USDA Visits Madison Co. Sprayer Operation

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

U.S. Department of Agriculture 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 Madison County recently 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 says he was impressed by what he saw, but did add it is too soon to tell if the sprayer system is something the USDA would want poultry farms to implement,.

In the 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.

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.