Beef producers can expect to be working closely with veterinarians as antimicrobial protocols change in Canada, participants heard at the annual Ranching Opportunities conference at Olds College.
Dr. Elizabeth Homerosky, with Veterinary Agri-Health Services Ltd., spoke at the Feb. 7 conference on the use, resistance and regulation of antimicrobials, which are antibiotics used in animal care.
“Antimicrobial resistance is a serious issue,” said Homerosky. “It isn’t something I see daily, but I do see it enough to know that it is affecting the health of our calves.
“Antimicrobial stewardship is everybody’s responsibility, and that being said, we are under very close scrutiny and we will be for a long time.
“Regulatory oversight of antimicrobial use is here to stay. Health Canada has learned from some of the mistakes from other countries and what that has done to the health and welfare of their animals.”
In December, Health Canada changed the protocol for antimicrobial use in the agriculture industry, with producers now required to have a veterinarian, client, patient relationship (VCPR) in place.
Under the VCPR system, vets will make regular visits to farms to provide oversight of treatment and provide prescriptions to purchase medically important antibiotics.
“I think the best thing to do is to leave a lot of the discretion to treat (with antimicrobials) a lot up to the rancher,” she said. “If you are in close contact with your veterinarian and you have that VCPR, I think that is the best thing for you guys, the best thing for the veterinarians and the best thing for your cattle.
“If you come to conferences like this you’re probably people who have very good relationships with your veterinarian. It’s just a matter of formally documenting it so if you get audited you can show that this was the conversation that we had.”
About 160 participants, including many Olds College students, took part in the Ranching Opportunities conference at the Olds College Alumni Centre.
Dr. Eugene Janzen made a presentation on pain mitigation in livestock.
A number of recent studies have been conducted regarding pain in the treatment of cattle, including several projects that compared banding versus surgery for castration, and one that looked at the best age to castrate, he said.
“For baby calves, banding is probably better than surgery,” said Janzen. “Once you get them a little bigger (four months-plus) I would argue that surgery is preferred. For branding we should seek alternatives.
"And probably the most important thing if we want to control pain, we’ve got to have the pain mitigation on board before we hurt them. All you’ve got to think of is how much you want to shoot that dentist if he starts drilling your teeth before the (freezing) has taken effect. We want to be careful that that’s not what we do to our calves.”
For calves between birth and two months, banding is best, and for calves over four months surgery in preferred, he said.
Pain mitigation can spare behavioural, feed intake and animal welfare concerns, he said.
Other presenters at the conference included Michelle Bryan, Holmes Boyd, Tammy Schwass, Brenna Grant and Duane McCartney.
The Opportunities in Herd Data producer panel was made up of Nicky Lansink, Doug Price and Doug Wray.
The annual Ranching Opportunities conference was sponsored by the Red Bow Agricultural Partnership, a collaboration of stakeholder groups – Mountain View, Clearwater, Rocky View, Wheatland, Red Deer and Kneehill counties, and the MD of Bighorn.
The group was formed with the purpose of “sharing resources, information, knowledge and facilitating networking opportunities for the benefit of sustainable agriculture within the rural communities in which they operate.”
About 120 people attended the Ranching Opportunities conference in February 2018.
