Benchmark sought for antibiotic use in swine
Swine veterinarians will begin a program this month to document antimicrobial use in hog production.
Dr. Dawn Magrath of Innovative Veterinary Services in Lethbridge said the new program will see veterinarians document their clients’ swine herd antimicrobial use to establish a benchmark on what is being used and how much.
Magrath said producer data will be confidential but the general information on type and amount will be key to future strategies.
“We don’t want to lose the use of these antibiotics. They’re important to us,” Magrath told a meeting of Alberta pork producers May 28.
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She urged producers to understand what products they’re using and why, rather than continuing antimicrobial use just because they are afraid of what might happen if they stop.
She quoted advice from another veterinarian: “You should be using as little as possible, as often as necessary.”
Options to mass treatment of antimicrobials include periodic or “pulsing” use rather than continuous application in feed, as well as considering individual pig care instead of mass treatment.
Disease management, an all-in, all-out system and vaccination are other options to potentially reduce antimicrobial use, Magrath said.
Health Canada has developed a strategy to combat development of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Of particular concern are drugs used in livestock that are also important in human medicine. In the case of swine production, those include Ceftiofur, Excede, Excenel and Baytril.
Frank Novak, chair of Alberta Pork, said it is important for producers to monitor Health Canada’s plans and for the industry to ensure important swine treatments are retained.
“This one is super fast moving,” Novak said.”
“It’s unbelievable how quickly this thing has moved in terms of federal government and their actions.”
Novak said the American pork industry is also concerned about U.S. initiatives to combat development of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
“The thing that they want to not happen to them … is they want to make sure we stay ahead of this so that somebody doesn’t hand us a result that we cannot live with, and the result that we cannot live with is that we become Denmark, where they say ‘thou shalt not use all these products’. ”
Novak said it will be important to stay on the same page as the U.S. on the issue so Canada doesn’t be-come less competitive in hog production.
“There are already enough competitive issues,” he said.
Contact barb.glen@producer.com
