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Prepare
Prevent
Evaluate
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Evaluate

The goal of evaluation is to continuously assess your animal health and biosecurity practices to ensure they’re effective, current, and responsive to new risks or lessons learned. By going through some of the exercises below, you may identify areas for improvement. “Evaluate” is often overlooked but is essential for long-term animal health and operational success.

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What Farmers Should be thinking about:

  • Are my current practices preventing disease?
  • Have there been recent illness cases—and could they have been avoided?
  • Is my team trained and following biosecurity correctly?
  • Are visitors or agritourism activities introducing new risks?
  • Am I documenting animal health well enough to spot trends?
  • Are there emerging diseases in my region I should prepare for?
  • How confident am I that we can respond quickly to a disease outbreak, either on-farm or locally?

Specific Practices Farmers Can Do:

If you are at the evaluation stage of health improvement/ disease reduction planning and need further assistance, please contact us.

farmer shoveling fresh saw dust into stalls in a dairy barn
  • Maintain a logbook or digital record for each animal: vaccinations, illness, treatments, weight, parasite load, and behavior.
  • Track herd-wide health data: number of illnesses, vet visits, and mortalities. 
  • Review this monthly or seasonally to identify patterns.
  • After an illness or death, perform a debrief (or necropsy if appropriate).
  • Ask: What happened? Was it preventable? Were signs missed?
  • Update protocols based on findings.
  • Do a monthly or quarterly self-audit:
    • Are quarantine pens in use?
    • Are visitors washing hands or wearing boot covers?
    • Are feed and water protected from contamination?
  • Walk through the farm with a “fresh set of eyes” or have a trusted peer or vet do it.
  • Hold short team check-ins to ask:
    • What’s working?
    • Where are people cutting corners?
    • Are there areas we’re unsure about?
  • Encourage anonymous feedback through a survey or comment cards  if needed to get honest input.
  • Log visitor numbers and any visitor/animal interactions.
  • Track if there’s a health decline in the herd after busy agritourism events.
  • Adjust visitor flow or biosecurity rules if needed (e.g., restrict contact during disease-prone seasons, or when vulnerable animals, such as newborns, are present).
  • Schedule annual or semi-annual veterinary reviews of your farm’s health protocols.
  • Reach out to local extension services for free or low-cost guidance.
  • Ask for updates on region-specific disease threats.
  • Keep your Biosecurity Plan, Emergency Response Plan, and Contact List current.
  • Revisit these annually and after any major animal health event.

Grant Information

This effort is supported in part by funding through the National Animal Disease Preparedness Response Program (NADPRP) for the 2024-2026 project “Reaching All Farm-Raised Animals: Assessment, Outreach, and Education on Farm Biosecurity and Disease Outbreak Preparedness in Maine for Small and Diverse Livestock Farms.” This initiative is in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (DACF) Animal Health Program.

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