With the holiday season just around the corner, meal preparation may have already started for some families! As happens sometimes, you might end up cooking too much food and have some leftovers from your celebrations! It can be tempting to feed left over food to your pets or livestock, but it is important to understand your General Biosecurity Duty (GBD) before doing so.
When feeding animals, you must be aware that there are restrictions placed on what can or cannot be fed to certain animals. These restrictions help prevent the introduction and spread of serious diseases. Feeding the wrong food to animals can have extreme consequences, particularly if pigs are given prohibited pig feed – which is any food that has meat in it or has been in contact with meat.
Under Australia’s Ruminant Feed Ban, ruminants, including cattle or sheep, must not be permitted to access Restricted Animal Material (RAM), which includes any material originating from a mammal, bird or fish.
Feeding prohibited pig feed to pigs is illegal in Tasmania and all Australian states & territories.
In Tasmania, ‘prohibited pig feed’ is defined in the Biosecurity Regulations 2022 as any animal food or fodder that comprises or has come into contact with meat from a mammal (other than milk or milk by-products from Australia, rendered meat meal or tallow).
The feeding of meat scraps to pigs was one contributing cause for several exotic disease outbreaks, including the FMD outbreaks in the UK in 2001 and the spread of African swine fever throughout Asia in 2020 and 2021.
If you own pigs or know of other pig owners, please ensure that they are not fed anything that contains meat or has been on a plate with meat. People food is not pig food.