** 2017 New Drug Law - What Are Your Plans? **

[casportpony]

As of 1-1-2017 almost all *water soluble antibiotics* (hygromycin b, Duramycin 10, TerraVet, Oxytetracycline, Sulmet, Di-methox, SulfaMed G, Lincomycin-Spectinomycin, neomycin, etc) will require a prescription, and I was wondering how people are going to handle this?

Will you be stocking up, will you use injectables, or will you find a vet to work with?

-Kathy

 

[speckledhen]

Pneumonia is contagious, as evidenced by not one but a few of your birds getting it. Treating it may have saved those few animals but that doesn't keep them from getting it at all, nor getting it in the future...so it does come down to a management problem. Illness happens and everyone knows that, but animals that are prone to contract it and spread it to others don't have to be kept in the flock or the gene pool.

Building better immune systems and healthier stock can eliminate most illness, but medicating it doesn't do anything towards that goal. There are MANY farmers not using antibiotics on their farms or they will lose their organic status. They choose to cull immediately any animals that show illness, cutting their losses while building towards overall flock/herd health.

I haven't had a single illness in the past 40 yrs that "called for antibiotics". That's not a brag, there's a point to that statement...if you determine you will use ATBs as a solution to a problem, then it calls for it. If you determine you will use more sustainable methods to solve that problem, then it doesn't call for them.

ALL their choices are not removed when the ATBs are removed, just the ones they favor most. There are many choices still left to manage livestock and keep them healthy without using oral or IM/IV ATBs. Yes, animals will die and that's okay...in that manner the weak are removed, the strong are left behind to make more strong animals. Wild chicken flocks, wild cattle, wild horses are all thriving and reproducing without the benefit of ATBs. Judicious culling of one's own flock can produce a flock that is much like the wild ones...stronger, healthier and more sustainable for the future. And not just through culling, but in overall conditions in which they live, one can influence the overall health of the environment wherein they live, encouraging healthier soils, healthier diets, healthier air in the coops, etc. It's a varied and ongoing approach to a single problem...flock health.

NO, it is NOT contagious. And why did you make the assumption that they passed it around anyway? I did not say that. A bird with pneumonia eight years ago doesn't pass pneumonia to the rooster last week, good grief. This is a situational pneumonia we're talking about- I did NOT say more than one got it at one time, I said a couple over 12 years, each with an explanation. No one passed it to anyone. I said one AT A TIME, none related to the other. And you did not ask the situation that precipitated it, but that probably does not matter to you. You just kill them all, I'm guessing. I've been accused of that myself for simply saying not to treat contagious disease, but a little common sense goes a long way toward not losing the birds unnecessarily.

As for a situation that causes pneumonia, a bird who is caught out in a rainstorm in cool weather and gets soaked to the bone and chilled may contract pneumonia. It is NOT contagious and CAN be treated. I have that from an excellent veterinarian I know who treated two young birds of a friend who that very thing happened to. They were in a cage outside and a sudden storm came up when she was not home. In two days, they both had compromised breathing. It was related to the situation, one did not get it from the other. He was adamant that they would be fine and they were.

Your "sustainable" solution seems to be to take the head off every bird with a symptom, and not to figure out HOW it occurred. If you want to do that, that's your business, but, IMO, that is not sustainable, IMO, that is just the lazy, easy way. If you want to, fine, but not everyone must do it that way. I've known breeders who did that, but I'm not a breeder. I have pets mostly and they are not carriers of anything because I practice biosecurity. Yes, no one can see germs, not even you. And they're everywhere. If you have valuable birds and you just kill every one without trying to figure what is happening, IF it's even contagious, you never know what happened. So your statement that nothing happened in 40 years....so, never a sneeze, never a question about odd breathing, never a fungal infection, nothing is what you're claiming. Now, if you're saying not one disease that called for antibiotics because you just took the axe to them, that is sort of misleading. They can get pneumonia from accidentally aspirating a substance so of course, that is not a contagion.

I will cull for contagious illness, but I see no reason whatsoever to dismiss a bird that can be helped if it is not contagious. And injuries are not contagious. I would be an irresponsible owner if I didn't try to offset any possible infection for a wound. But, if you just want to kill them all, that's your business. I personally think it's a little extreme. As far as sustainable, how would you know what my management style is? You didn't ask and as far as I know, you don't follow my posts. Not sure the difference in us other than you use the axe more freely than I do, I would imagine.

ETA: Not to mention, if you cull your birds at 2-3 years old, of COURSE you won't see much necessity for any treatment of anything. They don't stay long enough. I have quite a few 7-10 year old hens, some still laying. So, naturally, I'd see more than someone who doesn't have birds that long.

 

[Blooie]

I have none of that stuff anyway. I have a vitamin for chicks with stress or leg/foot issues but they have to really need it to get it. I have the same antibiotic ointment for them I have for me. I have Castor Oil (a nod to the wisdom of @Beekissed who told me about it for increasing circulation, which it indeed does) and I have raw honey. The little bottle of Poly-Vi-Sorb that I have on hand I got when I got my first chicks and I've used it exactly twice in all that time...once for one of my first chicks who seemed to be limping for no reason, and once for Scout after his frost bite. While my setup is kept up, I certainly wouldn't eat off the floor in there.

I start all chicks with a clump of soil straight out of the garden, roots, dirt, grass, weeds and all. They are raised outside on the same ground that the adults are on, and that they will be exposed to for the rest of their lives. Other than that, I do nothing else, and so far everything is great. Could that change? Of course it could, I'm not that naive. But when I read post after post of "my chicken chipped a toenail" and read someone else responding "give it this antibiotic for x number of days" I know that there is a serious issue with over-reliance.

My 2 cents.

 

[chickens really]

I think it is a great thing to happen.....All you hear on here is give this Med to cure a Bird.....In reality, healthy, maintained Chickens do not get sick.....Nutrition is the most important along with management to keep Chickens thriving......


Cheers!

 

[lazy gardener]

I am not a proponent of medication. My recommendations:

1. Maintain a closed flock. This will help prevent bringing in some of those nasty "forever" diseases. Encourage wild turkeys to visit your yard. They carry a less virulent strain of Marek's disease which will provide natural immunity to your flock.

2. Provide good nutrition: which IMO includes fermented feed and providing chicks with access to local soil within their first 2 weeks of life. Maintain healthy soil: either covered with plant material or deep litter/compost.

3. Realize that parasites and illness when they do happen affect the weakest flock members. By keeping those weak members in your flock, you are leaving them to be a disease vector, and breeding forward for a flock that is increasingly at risk of disease issues. Appropriate culling will do wonders for building a strong flock that is not disease prone. I've never had issue with Mareks, coccidiosis (my chicks do not get medicated feed) or any respiratory illness. Will use permethrin as needed if mites show up. (no mite issues for over 3 years)

Short answer: taking antibiotics off the shelves won't affect my husbandry methods.

 

[dheltzel]

I did buy a bit extra Oxytet a few weeks back. I keep my birds on a dairy farm and they have Oxytet in "tubs" (and a gallon jug of Corid for calf scours), so I should be ok if I really need to medicate. I really want to breed in more resistance, but sometimes the bird that gets sick is critically important for my breeding program and I am not willing to just cull.

I wonder if I can now buy antibiotic-free turkey starter from the feed mill? Last year the rep told me I had to buy a ton to get it specially formulated without the (multiple) drugs they add to keep poults alive when kept in deplorable conditions. He swore all my poults would die without the meds in the feed -- I never lost a single one to any disease

I don't have blackhead problems in this area, but I have meds on hand for it "just in case", my peas and turkeys mean too much to me to let them die from blackhead. Anyone suggesting not raising turkeys because they are disease prone has obviously never had a pet turkey. That's like trying to talk a cat lover into euthenizing all their pets because they get various diseases and worms. My turkeys are way more friendly than the housecat (he is not a great example of what you should expect from a cat though, let's just say he is prone to having a "bad attitude").

I would suggest that we will all do what we feel we need and should do. We backyard keepers are not even a "rounding error" in the volume of the "antibiotic problem". Most "violations" will continue unabated because changing to better conditions that don't require all the antibiotics would dramatically increase the cost of our meat supply, and we know that won't stand. I hate to sound pessimistic, but federal regulations rarely result in all the good they are aiming for, usually they just result in economic losses and windfalls for different parties.

 

[speckledhen]

Really?!?!
Why are these not on the ban list.....aren't they antibiotics??

They may soon be. The law has wording that sounds very open-ended in places.

You folks know I am not a proponent of antibiotics for ANYTHING contagious, but I have had to use them on rare occasions for infections from injuries as well as a couple of very rare cases of pneumonia, just this past week in fact. If I could not do that, then what? Not going to spend money to take a 3 yr old rooster to a vet who may not know as much as I do about chickens (unless he has some of his own and I know a couple who do). He definitely was starting up pneumonia, but in one day of Tylan injections, he was almost 100% sounding better. Just this month, I had two injured birds and one with the beginnings of pneumonia. Vet bills would be insane for us. Why let the birds suffer? We'd have had to put them down if they didn't heal up and we couldn't get antibiotics at all.

I just had to treat an injured bird, scalped completely, huge flap, open to her skull. I did give her a couple of penicillin injections just in case of infection (huge, open scalp to the bone, did not know how long it had been done by the time I saw it), in addition to using Vetericyn Wound Spray. I bought a new bottle of Pen-G, a new bottle of Tylan50, plus several bottles of fish antibiotics made to human standards (Thomas Laboratories) that I could use for us or the birds, if need be. The point is, we rarely ever need to treat our birds, but when we do, why should I pay that kind of money a vet charges when we can treat them ourselves?

Fish antibiotics are definitely water soluble, but who takes a fish to a vet? Stupid gov't regs.

The point is to take the control from the hands of the consumer, IMO. Big agri-biz is what is being supported, in the end. Control the food supply, control the people. If you can't treat your livestock yourselves, small farmers and backyarders will get out of the business/hobby.

ETA: We also bought a bag of powdered Duramycin, though we've never used it, just in case. The co-op was getting all their stuff sold out. Considering how infrequently we've had to administer antibiotics for any reason, all the stuff we got should last for many years. We all know that meds last beyond their expiration dates.

 

[South OH Chicks]

I applaud the decision to reign in the use of antibiotics. I have been an Infection Control Nurse for 4 years now and I see the problems being created by the big ag and the healthcare community relating to overuse of antibiotics. I work daily trying to educated people regarding using less antibiotics. Over half of the antibiotics in America go to agriculture and this is an important step in the right direction in fighting antibiotic resistance. I think big corporate farms have substituted antibiotics for husbandry and I think it has lead to low grade meat production and increased the amount of resistance. Believe me, I feel the healthcare community is as much to blame as well for the antibiotic resistance. Some of the products of the big egg/meat companies is the reason why I raise my own eggs and meat. In addition, I am glad to see more and more people going this route.

 

[Nin315]

I'm not sure why everyone assumes that needing an antibiotic is only bc of bad husbandry. My mother has 25 chickens, I have 50. There are other needs for them than disease. Mom had one chicken get an eye injury from an aggressive chicken, (now rehomed), and her eye looked to be getting infected. I went to Big R to get an antibiotic, as I had seen some there previously. They said new laws require script. Called vet and they told me to get an antibiotic in Indiana, we would haver 2 options. 1. Bringing chicken in..cost for an office call is 25 bucks.. and option 2.having vet come out and inspect flock to verify that flock is healthy,,,cost for visit is 75 dollars. Mom loves, spoils, and overkill on any husbandry, but she couldn't justify 25 bucks at minimum for 1 chicken. We separated her, gave vitamins, spoilEd her rotten, and let her out of cage to forage with a few of mom's other chickens that are free range. Because we couldn't get simple antibiotics, she kept getting worse no matter what mom did..and of course by this time mom loved her dearly. My brother finally had to put her down when it was obvious that she was suffering..ALL of this could have been solved with what we could have bought previously for around five dollars. IMHO this is another totally ridiculous example of overkill and invasion from government. .yes there may be some ppl who have zero common sense. But a simple injury, easily and cheaply treated previously turns into this mess. What if u have a chicken get attacked by a dog, raccon, etc? Even when our vet knew the situation, she said she had to follow the rules..I don't blame her but this is crazy.

 

[tlzimmerman]

See but here is the deal......both sides of this issue are food producers, and there is room in the market place for both ways of doing things (organic, vs modern farming practices). There are ways both organically and not organically to do it right and wrong. In the end, we are all out to give the consumer the best and safest product we can.

When it comes down to it though, its considered ok in society for people to call the highly regulated and researched and safe chemicals that modern ag uses "poison". That isn't ok. Those who raise things organically see themselves as inherently better, which you see in comments like "better the food supply". We need to support each other, not tear each other down. You can't do what we do out here without modern ag.

Lets support each other. Raising food organically is awesome, so is raising food using all the modern technology science has to offer. Chickens are awesome whether they eat organic non gmo fairy dust, or mutant GMO corn and soybeans soaked in roundup. LOL