Dutch show the way to reduce usage of antibiotics
About six months ago, I went to a meeting about dry cow therapy in Corrin Mart.
There was discussion of EU regulations banning blanket dry cow therapy, and how this might pan out in Ireland.
I was pleased to see a client of mine had been carrying out his own selective dry cow therapy for a few years, and was very happy with the results.
Then, last week, I was privileged to be invited to the NMC (Mastitis Conference) at Milan. Speakers included researchers and some practitioners from the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Chile and the USA, among others.
The first day, the talks were all about the switch from blanket to selective dry cow therapy in the Netherlands.
Ynte Schukken heads up the world famous GD animal health research unit in the Netherlands, and his revelations included that use of antibiotics, and antimicrobial resistance to these antibiotics, have both declined in the Netherlands, since they banned blanket preventative use of antibiotics.
On the other hand, he said, use of antibiotics, and resistance to these antibiotics, in the human population has been on the rise. He said their new rules for antibiotic use on farms, introduced on January 1, 2014, brought new opportunities to study the effects of management changes on incidence of diseases, including mastitis.
The Dutch government had found use of antibiotics in animals increased steadily since the 1990s, and with all the talk of increasing antibiotic resistance, they were determined to reduce use of antibiotics in animals back to early 1990s levels.
Rules were introduced, requiring all farmers to reveal their usage of antibiotics. There was to be a farm specific treatment plan, combined into a herd health plan, with one specific vet responsible for each farm.
Antibiotics for disease prevention were banned, along with all use of third and fourth generation Cephalosporins and Fluoroquinolone drugs. This was pretty severe, because blanket dry cow therapy was up to then part of their five-point mastitis control plan.
But most farmers in the Netherlands do monthly milk recording, a major advantage in the implementation of selective dry cow therapy. The criterion used for selecting a cow for dry cow therapy was that she had a somatic cell count of more than 50,000 in her last milk recording, which was not to be any more than six weeks previously.
The decision was to be made on an individual basis, with increased focus on the transition period around calving.
With the aid of the milk recording figures, they can now see that, since the introduction of this legislation in January 2014, the rate of new mastitis infections after calving has remained the same as prior to the introduction, and the rate of cure of these new infections has not been affected.
Through e-mail surveys of farmers, it has been found that attitudes have changed, and farmers are now proud to be using fewer antibiotics, and they have the confidence to raise the threshold of somatic cell count when selecting cow for dry cow therapy.
Within a few years, they already have 99% of herds using selective dry cow therapy.
I was left wondering how long it will take us here in Ireland to reach the same level.
