Baytril (Enrofloxacin)

[StacyW]

I posted a little over a week ago about my chick with a bump near her eye, and I was asking if it might be coryza. The overall opinion was probably not. It since got worse, a full-blown abscess, and I took her to a vet today (who agreed it wasn't coryza, but some kind of bacterial infection likely introduced by a scratch or a peck). The vet gave me terramycin ointment to apply the affected eye, and gave her an injection of Batyril (Entrofloxacin), and gave me four more syringes to give her over the next four days.

When I got home, I looked the drug up, and I see it was withdrawn from approval for use in food-producing animals, including poultry in 2005, on the grounds that its use in water was causing fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter bacteria. She's only 6 weeks old right now. Are her eggs going to be safe to eat? To sell for people to eat? It doesn't sound like there were any food-safety issues around the withdrawal of approval, and she won't be laying for several months yet, so I'm thinking they'll be fine to eat, but does anyone know for sure?

 

[coach723]

It's banned because of a risk of a resistant form of campylobacter that might survive in a treated bird. If someone ate improperly cooked chicken and got sick with it, it might not respond to treatment. It's less risk in eggs, but can happen, risk is more from fecal mater that might be on eggs. Cooking properly would kill the bacteria.
There may be liability involved in selling the eggs, if someone ever got sick.
I've used it in the past. When treating animals it's often a choice, is it more of a pet, or is it livestock for food production? Many use it to treat their birds, vets will often prescribe it for birds kept as pets. I would discuss with your vet, see where their opinion falls.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2005/07/fda-ban-enrofloxacin-use-poultry
https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/press_in...bacter___the_germ_on_chicken_eggs-204476.html