Over this side of the water, there seems to be a great move to reduce the agricultural sector’s dependency on antibiotic usage. This is due to concerns that the human population is producing antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.

But before we wholeheartedly blame the agricultural community, this was put in context for me by two stories I chanced upon. One was from a very knowledgeable vet who told me that the human population are responsible for 90% of drug residues in the water supply (how does it get there?).

The second story came from the other end of the table who told me about the problems suffered by water authorities. They spend so much money purifying water to clean up drug residues that they are prepared to spend a lot of money on any project that might get people to cut down on prescription drugs.

They tried throwing in the occasional dead sheep to restore the bacteria colonies, but this only worked for a short while

The problem of drug residues from the human population was further reinforced by the vet’s husband telling me of a care farm assisting drug-dependent patients in Scotland, which was established miles from any local services. They installed a reed bed to purify the waste water. Reeds normally trap bacteria, fungi and algae that digest sewage in such systems, but this constantly failed due to the drug residues in the water. They tried throwing in the occasional dead sheep to restore the bacteria colonies, but this only worked for a short while. Eventually, they had to connect to the distant mains services.

Teat sealant only

Here at home, I’m always prepared to talk about things that go wrong, but I have learned from bitter experience that the moment I start saying how wonderful things are, it all goes horribly wrong. So here I take a chance. For many years now, we have been using teat sealant, mainly because the other end of the table was on the Government committee responsible for licensing it for use in this country and she was impressed by its efficacy in New Zealand.

We now only use dry cow antibiotics on 25% of the herd

We used it as soon as it was available and very soon started using dry cow antibiotics selectively on only the high cell count cows. The theory is that dry cow antibiotic sterilises the cow’s udder, removing not only the harmful pathogens but the harmless ones as well, who otherwise would remain as gatekeepers to ward off harmful pathogens when they try to penetrate the teat orifice.

Here, I tempt fate as we now only use dry cow antibiotics on 25% of the herd (I hope the manufacturers of teat sealant read this and send me a few free boxes). This means we use a lot less dry cow antibiotic, but remember that when using teat sealant only, the method of infusion must be incredibly sterile as there is no antibiotic to guard against any mistakes.

Treat all cases of mastitis once; if that fails, milk the cow on three quarters for the remainder of lactation

The second way we reduce antibiotic use and our vet bills, and benefit the environment, is to treat all cases of mastitis once; if that fails, milk the cow on three quarters for the remainder of lactation. With a herd average of 7,000l/cow, a three-quartered cow can keep up – if we were on 10,000l it might be different.

On a similar theme, over the last few years vets tended to use more and more exotically named antibiotic. It is interesting that the latest batch of newly qualified vets use Penstrep constantly and are reluctant to use anything else they are keeping in reserve in the boot of their cars.

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The view from over the water: all stories from Joe