Biosecurity Signs

Signage Around the Farm

Biosecurity signs can help get your message across to visitors and farm employees alike. Not only the lack of, but poor wording or location of signs may undermine your efforts.

• Signs that appear professionally made convey your commitment to biosecurity and will be more effective than a piece of paper stapled to a door or post.
• Sign location is very important.
• Signs should be placed where visitors cannot help but notice.
• Signs mounted off to the side of a door or among a number of other signs are likely to be missed.
• Two simple ways to place signs effectively are to hang them from a barrier chain, or mount them on a post placed in the visitor's path of travel.

Chains made of yellow plastic links and posts made of scrap angle iron and set into a bucket of cement are effective, cheap, and easy to move out of the way when necessary. Professionally made signs need not cost a lot. Larger signs, similar to 24" x 36" metal handicap signs found in parking lots, may cost about $100 to make.

Many nutrition companies now offer some form of restricted entry sign bearing their logo free of charge. The message on the sign can vary in tone to reflect whether you want to welcome and/or warn your visitors.

Biosecurity Signs

Biosecurity signs can be placed at main entrances, barn entrances, along the farm perimeter, employee work areas, and anywhere there are farm animals, feed and water sources, and equipment that comes in contact with animals.

The signs below are examples from a collection that can be downloaded—in English and Spanish—as PDFs from the Center for Food Security and Public Health (CFSPH).

• Click this link to download biosecurity signs from the CFSPH.