Healthy animals do not need antibiotics
The measures taken by animal owners and veterinarians to reduce antibiotic use are taking effect. The number of antibiotics in all animal species in the QS farms continues to decline. In its function as a management tool in the QS system, QS antibiotics monitoring supports animal owners and veterinarians in constantly raising the level of animal health and ensuring the responsible handling and use of antibiotics. However, sick animals must also be treated in the future.
QS is currently working on an animal health database as a consulting tool and early warning system for animal health. In it, data on the use of antibiotics, biosafety, animal husbandry and diagnostic data are linked in such a way that farmers, veterinarians and consultants can recognize connections and draw conclusions from them. This should also help to further reduce the use of antibiotics.
Use data and stabilize animal health
QS has comprehensive data from 95 percent of all pig and poultry farms. These are numbers from the salmonella and antibiotics monitoring as well as the slaughter findings data from the slaughterhouses. QS will link this data together, process it specifically and make it available to the livestock farms for use. Together, livestock owners and veterinarians can identify weak points in their operations at an early stage and sustainably stabilize the health of livestock. "Only if we take into account all the factors that affect animal health can we improve animal health with preventive measures and further reduce the use of antibiotics," explains Thomas May, who is responsible for the monitoring programs and the recording of diagnostic data at QS, the planned linking of the data. For the cattle farmers in the QS system, the recording systems for antibiotic prescriptions and diagnostic data are currently being set up and tested in a project phase.
Create a reaction advantage with close-meshed QS analyses
Since 2015, the use of antibiotics has been reduced by more than a third (35,6%) in the livestock farms of the QS scheme. This is confirmed by the current quarterly figures of the QS antibiotics monitoring. The same applies to reserve antibiotics, where the quantities used were reduced by 32,6 percent. Through the quarterly evaluation and a separate therapy index for critical antibiotics, the companies in the QS scheme receive a close-meshed analysis of their stock and can thus react promptly and take appropriate countermeasures.
