Author Topic: antibiotics. (Read 2086 times)

deepinthewoods · « **on:** November 25, 2011, 06:19:03 pm »

what are your opinions on the use of antibiotics for livestock, or even yourself?
i know there are lots of warnings about their over use leading to resistant strains, does this pose a risk to livestock?
how were things treated before they came along?

jaykay · « **Reply #1 on:** November 25, 2011, 09:30:36 pm »

Use them when you need them, use the full course, don't use them for viruses or trivia. Be glad you and your animals live now.

How were things before.....well a lot of animals/people esp. kids died!

Read James Herriot, written pre-antibiotics, just when sulphonamides came out. It's scary the things they treated with treacle and brown paper

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #2 on:** November 25, 2011, 10:57:49 pm »

As jaykay says. The thing about using the full course is this. A bacterium which has been exposed to but not killed by an antibiotic has a good chance of now having some genes that code for resistance to that antibiotic. Not only does that make this bacterium and all its offspring resistant to that antibiotic (and probably a number of related ones, too) but also, bacteria can pass these genes between each other - and between types of bacteria, too. So the resistance spreads like wildfire and across species. By using the full course you are doing the best that you can to make sure that all exposed bacteria are well and truly nullified and don't survive to build resistance and pass it to other bacteria.

It's something to think about befpre choosing an antibiotic that requires more than one shot. If the shot makes enough of a difference, can you still catch the patient and administer any subsequent shots? If not, use a Long Acting or one-shot antibiotic.

Plantoid · « **Reply #3 on:** November 26, 2011, 08:41:34 pm »

All what has been said above and NEVER EVER use human antibiotics on animals and vice versa.

I know some people who did it using human stuff on animals a week before being taken for salughter so I gave the inspecting vet a tip off , which resulted in the carcases being removed from the food chain & a very severe written warning about the dangers and illegality of it all .

The sky only knows what was liable to result if kiddies , healthy adults or infirm people had eaten the flesh from the animals still carrying traces of human antibiotics and half dead animal bacteria.