toastedoat37":3mkwbajo said:
the arguement that you dont want someone coming through your rabbitry because of biosecurity is really an arguement for the need to have some inspections. Your saying that there are so many sick rabbits out there that your afraid yours will get sick , law makers are gonna say, well if this is the case, something needs to be done about it.
Actually, it has nothing to do with sick rabbits, and everything to do with rabbits in different rabbitries being resistant to different things.
Like that Indian tribe that was wiped out because the settlers they came in contact with had been exposed to smallpox and were resistant to it. Smallpox had never been over here, so when the Indians were exposed, it tore through them like wildfire, and killed them all. All except for one, a very famous one... Squanto. He survived because he had been kidnapped and taken to Europe. When he came back, his tribe was gone.
If that tribe had never been exposed to the European settlers, they would presumably have remained healthy and still been there when Squanto returned. The Europeans weren't sick, though. But they and the Indians were resistant to different pathogens.
There are pathogens -- bacteria, viruses, fungi -- all around us. Each farm will have a unique mix of these. The animals that thrive there are the ones that are resistant to the germs that are there. A mile away, is another farm with its own mix of germs. Farmer A wants to buy a rabbit from Farmer B, and goes to Farmer B's place to check out his rabbits. Farmer B lets him tour his rabbitry, maybe handle some of his rabbits. A few days later, Farmer A's other rabbits start showing symptoms of illness. His rabbits were not resistant to some germ that Farmer B brought over on his clothes.
Does this mean Farmer B's animals are sick? No. It just means they are resistant to that particular germ, while Farmer A's are not. So what doesn't bother Farmer B's animals at all begins killing Farmer A's rabbits. The government inspecting either facility will not do any good at all. All the animals are healthy, as long as they aren't exposed to each other like happened when Farmer B toured Farmer A's rabbitry.
Farmer B takes his new rabbit home. If he puts that rabbit right into his rabbitry, he is endangering his other rabbits -- not because the new rabbit is sick, but because it could be carrying something it is resistant to, that his herd is not. If he is wise, he will quarantine the rabbit for a month, so it is slowly introduced to the germs at the new farm, and so Farmer B's rabbits are slowly introduced to the germs from the new rabbit.
This is one of the big reasons for closed rabbitries and biosecurity.