Antibiotics will soon require vet prescription

[perchie.girl]

You could buy from online gamebird and pigeon supply websites, or buy fish antibiotics.

When I worked at a large aquarium store... We had Penicillin and Tylenol for treatment of Aquarium fish.

deb

 

[Shezadandy]

Scary stuff.

Being a retired nurse I was on the front line when it came to dealing with antibiotic resistant illness.

Hospitals are hot beds of disease organisms and I saw more people that have fallen victim to this situation than makes me comfortable. People having surgeries, many knee or hip replacements find themselves victims of MRSA (methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus) or C-diff and found themselves being admitted to the rehab unit for treatment of a nasty infection that they caught IN the hospital. The IV antibiotics given to treat these conditions, Vancomycin being one of them, is potent and potentially dangerous even to administer with some pretty nasty side effects of it's own. When I worked in the nursing home industry we saw people admitted with these same conditions, AFTER being admitted to a hospital.

Where, I'd like to know, are these bacteria that are invading the hospitals coming from?

I've had incidents while working a new born nursery where cultures of the walls found staph bacteria. We were all tested regularly for staph. So who knows. Are the great unwashed masses coming in to visit patients and see their new family members bringing in the buggies? That is my theory.

Now what has made them resistant is the next question? MRSA can not be destroyed. It is forced into colonization by powerful antibiotics and remains dormant in the person's bloodstream. C-diff can be eliminated but it's my suspicion that what is happening is that people who have lesser illnesses that do require treatment with antibiotics are not taking the full course of medicine and the super bug transformation takes effect when that happens.

The key to it all might be as simple as education of the masses to stop this resistance.

I have a cousin with cystic fibrosis who has been plagued by MRSA. Long hospital stays throughout his life all but guaranteed it. He's made it into his late 20s and now has to make a target weight (i.e. he has to gain enough weight) to make the lung transplant list. It's horrible to have an already devastating disease without adding in the superbugs of our own making. Well meaning, of course, the road being paved with good intentions and all.

 

[Shezadandy]

I just like dark humor so much, cant help it.

My mind jumped immediately to "The Meaning of Life" …

 

[pennyJo1960]

I am a huge believer in do not medicate so fast the medicated starter is perfect example
make them resistant from the get go birds get ill why won't the med work Duh Ralph

 

[Cyprus]

I am a huge believer in do not medicate so fast the medicated starter is perfect example
make them resistant from the get go birds get ill why won't the med work Duh Ralph

Exactly.
I die a bit inside every time I see anyone say they use medicated starter or Corid.

 

[Shezadandy]

Exactly.
I die a bit inside every time I see anyone say they use medicated starter or Corid.

As a treatment for a clear problem - I'm all for it. Preventative- not so much. In the beginning, of course, everything you read says use medicated and so on. We do Flock Raiser for all … and if littles run into an issue- then I treat as a life-saving measure, close eye is kept, of course. It seems to largely depend on the weather - those warm days with wet ground are the biggest precipitator.

 

[Kusanar]

People like my boss make me cringe. "I felt bad and I don't have insurance yet so I looked in my medicine cabinet and found some old antibiotics to take".... first of all, why do you even HAVE old antibiotics? You are supposed to take them all when they are prescribed... Also, do you have something that antibiotics will treat? If not, then why are you taking them?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

 

[microchick]

You can buy fish antibiotics of all shapes and sizes from Thomas Labs, Country Side Pet Supply, and Jeffers Pets. Some on Jeffers require RXs but for the most part the fish 'floxes' don't.

Sometimes where coccidia are concerned, a flock master doesn't have any choice but to treat or lose birds. It happened to me last year. I lost one young pullet before I realized what happened and almost lost a young cockerel realizing what was wrong too late for the pullet. We had an extremely wet, chilly spring so I should have been watching for it. I treated twice and it cleared. As long as it is cold and wet in the spring especially, I treat the water with corrid. I've lost too many birds to Marek's to chance loosing more to parasites.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

IMHO, unless a virulent pathogen is brought into a flock, antibiotics, coccidostats and anthelmintics aren't needed. If they are, it is probably due to bad management.
I raise a lot of chickens and I haven't used any of those treatments in years - and I must admit that I sometimes have my stocking density too high. My big ventilation with the wind blowing right through and the bone dry bedding for chicks are my biggest allies. Yes I allow and encourage all the drafts to come into the building that want to. After fresh air, optimal nutrition is key.
I don't buy into the 'no drafts' philosophy. I don't use medicated feed. I might hatch 100 chicks or so a year. My buildings are wide open even to well below 0F. I haven't experienced coccidiosis in may years and never a respiratory illness.
I reject the idea that chickens are fragile. On the contrary, they are vigorous, robust creatures that are hard to kill given the right management. If not, rethink the conditions, nutrition and ventilation.