The Cattle Health and Welfare (CHAWG) sub group (which looks at antimicrobial drug use) has issued a consultation on drug recording which is applicable to farmers in Wales.
The consultation states that antimicrobial use in youngstock is often lost in the farm-level mg/kg currently used and that youngstock should be recorded separately. The consultation also looks at how livestock traceability databases could be used in recording drug use.
This has implications for the future of drug recording in schemes such as Red Tractor / FAWL.
The key questions are:
Youngstock Benchmarking:
1. Are the primary youngstock benchmarking groups correct (i.e. <8weeks and 8weeks-12months)? Should there be more or fewer categories?
2. Do you agree with the weights/categories used to calculate the denominator (i.e. kg of animal at risk)? If not, how would you change them?
3. Do you have any other suggestions to improve the metric and/or any alternative ideas?
Farm benchmarking using a national traceability database:
1. Do you agree with the weights/categories used to calculate the denominator (i.e. kg of animal at risk)? If not, how would you change them?
2. Do you have any other suggestions to improve the metric and/or any alternative ideas?
Alternative dairy farm benchmarking metric:
1. Do you think this is a useful alternative where usage by age group is not available?
2. Do you have any other suggestions to improve the metric and/or any alternative ideas?
The Consultation closed on 16 July 2020. Please click here to view the FUW response.