THE MOO NEWS
| Newsletter of Penn Dutch Cow Care | January 2006 |
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Hi Folks,
As we look ahead to the New Year, sometimes it's also good to look back at the past year and see what all happened. I've tallied up the activity on the certified organic and transitioning-to-organic farms (76 total) where I am the primary veterinarian and thought I'd present to you a round up of last year. Actually, I've been keeping track of this for the last few years now and an accumulation of those years will appear in the 2nd edition of my book which is being published by Acres USA. It should be back in print by the end of February if all goes well.
Here's the activity last year, 1/1/05 thru 12/31/05, with the average per farm in (parenthesis). Explanations follow the listing.
On 76 certified organic or transitioning-to-organic farms:
Regular and late calls: 647 (8.5) range: 0-27
Emergencies: 59 (0.8) range: 0-4
Physical exams of sick cows: 389 (5.1) range: 0-25
Pregnancy/ herd checks: 3686 (48.5) range: 0-118
Obstetrics (calvings): 44 (0.6) range: 0-3
Reproductive treatment for bad uterus (allowed): 109 (1.4) range: 0-10
Reproductive treatment for bad uterus (prohibited): 1 (0.01)
Medication administered (allowed): 141 (1.9) range: 0-11
Medication administered (voted to be allowed by USDA NOSB): 124 (1.6) range: 0-11
Medication administered (prohibited): 61 (0.8) range: 0-8
Lameness treatment (allowed): 63 (0.8) range:0-9
Lameness treatment (prohibited): 1 (0.01)
Dispensed medication (allowed): 406 (5.3) range: 0-26
Dispensed medication (homeopathics): 481 units (either 1oz. or 4 oz.) (6.3) range: 0-117
Dispensed medication (botanicals): 327 units (4.3) range: 0-20
Dispensed medication (biologicals): 446 units (5.9) range: 0-29
Dispensed medication (prohibited): 72 (0.9) range: 0-7
Surgery (DAs): 26 (0.3) range: 0-5
Surgery (other): 25 (0.3) range: 0-1
Acupuncture: 8 (0.1)
Laboratory diagnostics: 164 (2.2) range: 0-15
EXPLANATIONS
- Regular calls are those called in between 6:30am-8:00am
- Late calls are those after 8am but are not outright emergencies (late calls incur a higher stop fee)
- Most of the emergency calls were for obstetrics (calvings)
- Reproductive treatment (allowed) was generally for a bad uterus within 2 weeks fresh and included administering iodine pills or infusions of a colostrum whey product with botanical.
- Reproductive treatment (prohibited) would mean the use of PG/lutalyse (only one time!)
- Medication administered (allowed) indicates that the treatment I gave to the animal
included only allowed materials for organics i.e. botanicals, biologics, electrolytes, ivermectin, oxytocin, chlorhexidine, iodine, etc.
-Medication administered (voted to be allowed by USDA NOSB) indicates that the treatment I gave to the animal may have included allowed materials but also at least one material like mineral oil, flunixin, xylazine, butorphanol, furosemide, etc.
-Medication administered (prohibited) indicated that the treatment I gave to the animal may have included allowed materials but also a prohibited material like oxytetracycline, naxcel, dexamethasone, florfenicol, PG/lutalyse, etc.
-Lameness treatment (allowed) indicates that a botanical or other allowed material was applied topically to the hoof problem.
-Lameness treatment (prohibited) indicates that I used an antibiotic like penicillin (only one time!)
-Dispensed medication allowed includes vaccines, electrolytes, hoof wrap, teat dilators, etc. If 5 boxes vaccine were dispensed, it was only counted as one.
-Dispensed homeopathics are self-explanatory. Each bottle dispensed was tallied.
-Dispensed botanicals are self-explanatory. Each bottle (tincture or tablets) or box (of tubes) was tallied
-Dispensed biologics includes each unit of Immunoboost, BoviSera, and Hyper Immune Plasma
-Surgeries (DAs) are twisted stomach operation I did. However, some were referred to other veterinarians (about 10 of them)
-Surgeries (other) include stitches cuts (udder, milk vein, etc), opening teats, and other odds and ends.
Acupuncture was mainly for down cows.
Laboratory diagnostics were mainly for mastitis identification, parasite identification, and antibody titers for diseases.
Importantly, the frequency of prohibited medicine use should be explained. It breaks down to this: in more than 2/3 of the cases (45 of 61) that I administered an antibiotic it was for calf pneumonia with the remainder being for cows with hot mastitis or odd, sporadic conditions. Also should be mentioned that my administration of a prohibited material occurred on transitioning farms 39 out of the 61 doses (~65%). Regarding prohibited medications that I dispensed, 59 of 72 times occurred on transitioning farms. With about 24 transitioning farms and 52 certified farms, this may indicate that the certified farms revert to antibiotic use less and/or the need to revert to antibiotic use is less, compared to transitioning farms. I would estimate that I'm the primary vet for about 4000 certified organic and transitioning adult cows and 4000 more young stock. So, we can see that only about 0.6% (133/8000) of all these animals needed a prohibited material (likely an antibiotic), mostly being calves with pneumonia not responsive to natural treatments (either initiated by me or route truck sales people). This is an extremely low number. I have no idea what percent of animals in the conventional dairy industry get treated with antibiotics and hormones in a year's time. This is just a "quick and dirty" round up of the numbers, but hopefully it can be seen that use of prohibited materials can be replaced by using natural materials especially if a multi-prong approach to problems is undertaken. The transitioning farms are still learning a more holistic approach while the certified farms probably realize that simple input substitution is not enough when trying to avoid prohibited materials. This means the need to use higher forage rations, lots of exercise and grazing (when in season), fresh air, good ventilation, dry bedding and keeping a closed herd if possible.
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