Why you should pay attention to heartworm disease and, did you get our letter?

Minnesota Board of Animal Health sent this bulletin at 06/13/2025 09:42 AM CDT

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Animal Bytes

June 2025

Here come the county fairs: bring your best biosecurity!

It's almost time to get your livestock show-ready for one of Minnesota's 92 county fairs. Show prep often includes a lot of bathing, trimming and brushing to get that blue ribbon. Does it also include a biosecurity checklist to ensure you are doing everything you can to keep your animals healthy? Don't worry if you don't have your own list, we have you covered with a quick, printable PDF, "Biosecurity Recommendations for Exhibitors" to keep with you or print out and duct tape to your trailer as a good reminder.

We say it every year, and for good reason, biosecurity keeps animals healthy. It starts at your farm before you depart; only bring healthy-looking animals to the fair and contact your veterinarian if any are showing signs of illness. Once you get to the fair you should keep your equipment to yourself and wash your hands before feeding or watering your animals. Lastly, biosecurity doesn't end when you return home. Keep animals you exhibited at the fair separate from other animals on your farm for a couple weeks to make sure they didn't bring home any illnesses.

In addition to biosecurity, do you know the rules and regulations for exhibiting livestock in Minnesota? If not, brush up before you load up the truck and trailer to compete for a ribbon. Having your animals prepared to exhibit will make your check-in process with the fair veterinarians and managers smoother. Flip through our Livestock Exhibition Handbook for all the rules and regs you need to know before you go.

Keep reading...

Join us in July to learn about Heartworm

Don't worry if you haven't already caught one of our popular companion animal webinars this year. We have more educational entertainment setup for your lunch hour on Wednesday, July 9 to talk about Heartworm disease.

We've been doing these easy-to-follow webinars for a few months now and are covering everything in our companion animal program. So far, topics have ranged from Certificates of Veterinary Inspection (CVI) to biosecurity and infectious disease control in shelters and rescues. If there's an idea we haven't covered yet, please reach out to us to add it to our list for future webinars.

Getting back to our upcoming Heartworm webinar, we'll be focusing on what it is, how it's transmitted, clinical signs, treatment, and the importance of screening before importing pets into Minnesota. Register today to secure your spot in this free, educational series.

H5N1 milk surveillance continues with no new cases

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has been sampling milk for H5N1 from dairies across the state since late February. The MDA tracks all sampling on its website. To date, only one case has been detected and confirmed on March 21. You can view details for all confirmed H5N1 cases in Minnesota on the Board's website.

Last summer the Board had a policy requiring any lactating dairy to have a negative H5N1 test before being allowed to exhibit. The policy has expired. Thanks to MDA's continued milk surveillance program, the Board doesn't need additional screening requirements for lactating dairy at this time.

10-year brand renewal notices sent out

If you have a livestock brand registered with the Board you will need to renew it by the end of this year. Regardless of when you first registered your brand, we are required to renew all of them every 10 years. We mailed out notices to all current addresses of brand registrants in our records last month and gave instructions on how to start the renewal process. If you know you have a registered brand and didn't receive a letter, you can reach out to us at animalhealth@state.mn.us or 651-296-2942.

Learn about our livestock brand program on our website.

September Board meeting location details

Our next quarterly Board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 10 at 9:30 a.m. We will post the location details on our website after the start of the new state fiscal year in July.