Dairy farmers may not think of themselves as beef producers, but if they every market a cull cow or a bull calf, they are - and that should prompt them re-evaluate their drug handling procedures.
That was the message of Dr. Dick Wallace, a veterinarian who spoke to a gathering of dairy farmers near Lodi last week. Wallace, who formerly worked as Illinois Extension veterinarian and manager of the state college's dairy herd, is now a technical services specialist with Pfizer Animal Health.
He used his expertise to talk to the dairy producers about guaranteeing safe meat to the public by pinpointing protocols for drug use on the farm. Veterinary organizations, like the Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association, are targeting dairy farmers for this information, he said, because cull dairy cows represent the largest group of drug residue offenders.
"Dairy cows represent twice the risk of beef cows," he said. Statistics show that 27 million fed cattle were sold into the market in 2008 and there were only 16 animals found to have drug residues. Out of 3.5 million beef cows shipped, there were only 52 violations.
During the same period there were 2.6 million dairy cows sold and they resulted in 799 violations. "You don't want to get on the violator's list," Wallace said. "Cull dairy cows are 8 percent of all cattle slaughtered but they result in 90 percent of the violations."
The top drugs found in these cows are penicillin (34 percent), flunixin, which is the drug most know as Banamine (26 percent) and sulfa (15 percent) he said.
Wallace said that in 1999 the top drug offender was gentamycin at 39 percent and after ten years of changing the way that drug is handled and prescribed, the drug has dropped down to 6 percent of the violations.
"That's what we can accomplish if we get together and do the right thing. We can get the violations down," he said. "But we still have problems with penicillin. Banamine wasn't there in 1999, because they weren't testing for it. Now they are and the sensitivity of the tests has improved."
Wallace reviewed the label directions for penicillin, which is labeled for use in cattle and sheep with bacterial pneumonia at a rate of 1 cc per 100 pounds of animal once a day for 3 or 4 days. And if those label directions are followed to the letter, the meat should be safe 48 hours after the last treatment.
But in the real world, he said, those directions may not always be followed to the letter, so the standard withholding time will have to be extended.
Wallace said that dairy managers and their veterinarians should develop science-based protocols for using drugs on the farm. That means following label directions carefully and keeping good records. These protocols should be developed as a team, he said, including the workers who will have to make cow-side treatment decisions.
"And watch out for the exceptions - cows that are dehydrated, may have kidney failure, poor rumen function or some other condition that prevents them from eliminating the drug from their system," he said. "They will be looking even closer at cows they think may have residues."
Producers should also evaluate any drugs that they purchase over the counter (OTC) and those they are using in ways that are different from what is directed on the label. "There's no product officially labeled for navel infections, so you have to have a prescription for that," he said.
Protocols call for a valid veterinarian-client relationship, which means that the herd is regularly visited by a veterinarian, and that the vet has a sufficient knowledge of the animals in the herd. "This means that the vet has recently seen and been personally acquainted with the keeping and care of the animals," he said.
Wallace admitted that there is some inequity in the system of slaughter surveillance for drug residues. There is a tolerance of a level of residue for the drug tilmicosin (Micotil) in beef cows, but in dairy cows there is zero tolerance, he said, because it's not labeled for dairy cows.
"And no residue means no detectable level," he added. "If residue occurs in non-approved species or production class, the tolerance is listed as no tolerance." That means that it could take months or even a year for the drug to clear from the animal, he added.
But the FDA is pushing for on-farm drug-use protocols. "The FDA is convinced that residue risk drops dramatically when vets develop these plans," he said.
They include developing a written set of protocols for each farm, following of label directions, training of employees, good record-keeping and verification of meat and milk clearance for every animal before it goes into the food supply.
Drug surveillance will likely become more stringent with a wider scope, he said, so producers making their own extra-label decisions may be in for an unexpected surprise.
"Every dairy cow has two careers," he reminded the producers in his audience, "and one of them is beef. Currently society trusts dairy farmers to produce wholesome milk and beef. You should never violate that trust."
When developing protocols, Wallace encouraged farmers to hold staff meetings so everyone understands what is being done and why. "And put yourself in their shoes," he said. "If something is too much trouble for you to do even once, then how can you expect them to do it every day or every week."
Developing the protocols takes time and is best done with hands-on experience and will generate paperwork. But that paperwork can help the dairy farm understand what is being done.
"It can also ensure consistency and reduce variability from person to person," he said. It can also be valuable in case of an investigation.
Bob veal, defined as calves slaughtered at less than 21 days of age and under 150 pounds, are also a group that presents some problems - most of them from dairy farms. Wallace told the story of a well-run dairy farm with good protocols that usually sells its dairy bull calves at three days of age.
But when their regular hauler's truck broke down, the bull calves stayed at the farm for several weeks and when one of them had a navel infection, the calf manager followed protocol and treated it with an antibiotic. When the truck got fixed and all the calves went to market, these older, larger bull calves looked really good and went to slaughter. The Food and Drug Administration appeared at the farm to investigate because the one that had had the navel infection had a drug residue.
Wallace said the fact that the farm had written protocols helped make that a short investigation. Now the farm changed its protocol to say that it will only treat heifer calves, to prevent that situation happening again. "The fact that they had these protocols in place made it a half-day investigation rather than a longer one," he said.
Wallace's presentation was sponsored by the Lodi Veterinary Hospital. For more information on this topic, Wallace recommended the website
www.avoidresidues.com.
