VET ASK THE
In conjunction with the Willows Farm Veterinary Group
Over the next few months the Willows will be answering all of your veterinary related questions.
Are you struggling with disease related issues or are your livestock displaying symptoms that you're unsure about? Ask the question!
EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO:
email@thefarmart.co.uk VET: Laurence Allwood
Due to industry recommendations for less antibiotic use on farm. Should every cow receive dry cow therapy at drying off?
In terms of antibiotic dry cow therapy (DCT) the short answer is no. Not every cow should need antibiotic DCT. However, the situation is not as black and white as it may seem. The drive to reduce antibiotic usage on farm is an attempt to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) developing, which would render treatments ineffective and may represent a risk to human health if antimicrobial resistance in bacteria on farm was transferred to those causing infections in humans. There is therefore scrutiny on how we use antibiotics on farm from regulatory authorities right through to the consumer, and we need to demonstrate that we can use them responsibly and in a safe way.
Essentially the first step to reducing the risk of AMR developing is to reduce the number of animals and therefore bacteria exposed to an antibiotic. Only animals with a bacterial infection should receive antibiotics. The use of prophylactic antibiotic therapy, e.g. treating all calves arriving on a farm with antibiotics to prevent pneumonia or treating all quarters of all cows with antibiotics at dry off to control cell count, can't really be defended as responsible use of antibiotics. In these scenarios healthy animals with no infection will receive antibiotics.
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However, antibiotic DCT is an important tool to help control contagious mastitis infections that are responsible for high cell counts. So, we need to be able to identify which cows are likely to be infected and be selective which cows we treat. For this we need serial SCC records and mastitis records. This is selective dry cow therapy.
Input from your vet is essential to help you decide, on your farm, which cows are most likely to be infected. Looking at cell counts over the entire lactation or as a minimum the last four monthly milk recordings prior to dry off would be my recommendation. If a cow has had less than 100 SCC in all recordings and no mastitis events it is unlikely that this cow is infected and therefore dry off without antibiotic would be appropriate. I would always recommend the use of an internal teat sealant in both cows treated with antibiotics and those that aren't to help reduce the risk of cows picking up environmental mastitis infections during the dry period. A cow with 4 out of the last 6 SCC recordings higher than 300 SCC and a history of mastitis events would be a good candidate for receiving antibiotic DCT, as research has shown the greatest chance of curing her of this infection is antibiotic treatment during the dry period. Obviously these two cows are fairly black and white in terms of what dry cow therapy they should receive, but there will be many cows that fall between these. Work with your vet to set thresholds or scenarios to determine which cows should receive antibiotic DCT, these must be based on a farm by farm basis taking into account herd SCC, % chronic high SCC cows, mastitis pathogens seen on farm etc. It is also important to discuss your culling policy for chronic high SCC cows, some of these cows are unlikely to resolve their infection even with antibiotic DCT and should be removed from the herd as they are a source of infection for other cows. As well as the reduction in antibiotic usage there is a cost saving element to selective DCT too.
When starting out with selective dry cow therapy it is important to have a drying off protocol. When tubing cows there is always a risk of introducing some bacteria into the udder and a protocol aimed at preparing the teats in a thoroughly hygienic manor should be in place. Again, your vet should help with this and it may be beneficial to have some staff training sessions.
Lastly, it is important to monitor the success of your chosen dry cow therapy plan and be prepared to change thresholds if necessary. There will also be situations e.g. the presence of certain mastitis pathogens that will require the usage of more antibiotic DCT and as long as this is part of a bigger plan to tackle the problem then this is justifiable.
Tel: 01606 723200
Willows Vet Group, 267 Chester Road, Hartford, Northwich, Cheshire CW8 1LP
December 2019 Keep The Farmart coming free..... Tell’em where you saw’em Page 35
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