How to make a disinfecting mat?

There are a number of measures taken to prevent or control infectious diseases in animals, including foot and mouth disease and African swine fever.

What to do? What actions should be taken to effectively prevent infectious diseases in animals? The answer is disinfection mats. Eliminating the infectious agent from the environment is possible thanks to careful and thorough activities related to the construction of the mat, because it affects effective disinfection. Properly performed decontamination, in other words the process of removing and disinfecting a harmful substance, reduces the spread of the disease and shortens the time of its eradication.

Disinfection mats applications:

Disinfectant mats are designed to remove infectious biological materials from the wheels and wheel arches of vehicles and machines, the source of which are, among others:

- infected, sick or dead domestic or wild animals found on the roads,
- feces of domestic or wild animals found on the roads,
- animals exported from farms,
- products of animal origin,
- earth, mud, manure, etc.

Disinfecting mats should be placed at the entrances and exits of the breeding area, but also breeding buildings, feed warehouses and manure storages. Thanks to this, infected biological materials are not introduced from the outside, and any pathogenic microorganisms do not spread inside the culture.

How to properly prepare a disinfectant mat?

• prepare the ground for laying the mat: it should be hard, smooth and horizontal,
• spread the PVC foil, the size adapted to the road conditions and the expected size of vehicles,
• spread fire hoses filled with sand on the edge of the foil, along the roadway,
• fold the edges of the foil to create a pool,
• spread fire hoses filled with sand on the edge of the foil, across the road,
• lay out the second layer of PVC foil,
• pre-profil the swimming pool and arrange the crossing bridges,
• reprofile the pool,
• fill the mat with a large amount of absorbent material, e.g. sawdust, deciduous tree shavings,
• put on personal protective equipment, gloves and a mask,
• soak the absorbent material with a disinfectant, a 3% water solution of caustic soda is best for this,
• the absorbent material should be moist, therefore it should be systematically moistened with an active agent - a disinfectant such as caustic soda solution.

Weather conditions and the effectiveness of the disinfectant mat.

At any temperature, care should be taken to ensure the effectiveness of disinfection mats. At high temperatures, the water evaporates quickly, and the dry mat does not fulfill its role. Therefore, you should regularly take care of replenishing the active agent. Positive temperatures close to 0⁰C reduce the disinfecting effectiveness of solutions, and below 0⁰C, the disinfectant practically does not fulfill its role. Therefore, the aqueous solution used must be warmed and an antifreeze added to it. During precipitation, check that the caustic soda water solution has not been diluted and has not lost its properties.

In addition to replenishing the active agent, you should also check the mat for wheel ruts and sawdust-free strips. Therefore, sawdust should be mixed regularly. Depending on the intensity of use, the mat should be replaced periodically, maximum every month.

Disinfectant mats prepared in this way, regularly inspected and maintained in a highly usable state, will ensure the safety of each breeding farm, even in times of epidemic threat. Used preventively, even when there are no such threats, they prove a high breeding culture and care for animal welfare. Remember how they see you, that's how they write you.

Caustic soda available at distripark.com

* This article is for informational purposes only. The presented description, in particular the use of the products, is exemplary and constitutes non-binding information about the characteristics and possibilities of their use/application. In any case, before using the product, consult a specialist whether the specific use is safe and justified. We do not bear any responsibility for the use of the proposed solutions, even in very similar situations.