More On Antibiotic Use in Livestock

More On Antibiotic Use in Livestock

More On Antibiotic Use in Livestock. I'm Greg Martin with Colorado Ag Today.

Last week we spoke with Dr. Keith Belk, Professor, Center for Meat Safety & Quality at CSU's College of Agricultural Sciences about changes on the way in how antibiotics are used and administered. Dr. Belk says the use of antibiotics has been an improvement to the livestock industry.

BELK: There is absolutely no question that it has improved - I'm not going to say the quality of product but it has definitely improved the animal welfare as the primary benefit. You can't not treat sick animals and if somebody is sitting in an office in Washington DC and they say well we can't use these on livestock, then they haven't been in the real world. There's no human being that's going to work with livestock and not do whatever they can to treat sick animals.

He says that's where the biggest benefit has been, on the animal welfare side.

BELK: It also has improved efficiencies because it's been a preventative topic and so the use of antimicrobials has prevented some health issues which in turn improves productivity.

But with all the changes coming Belk says you need to be prepared to make some changes.

BELK: In an effort to prevent the loss of effectiveness for those antibiotics that are used in human treatment it's possible that we will lose them in livestock treatment. The options are that we need to figure out what to replace them with or we need to figure out how to adjust our management practices so that the things they were used for are no longer necessary.

And that's Colorado Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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