Antibiotics
are losing their effectiveness because more bacteria are developing
resistance, Dr. Ken Metzger told beef farmers at a recent meeting in
Huron County.
He talked
about the challenges for treating bacterial diseases and infections
and said beef farmers will need to take more care to keep their
animals healthy and hope that researchers can find new ways to
control bacterial diseases and infections.
What is also
apparent is that antibiotics purchased as growth promotants are also
losing their effect, yet few farmers run on-farm trials to determine
whether it continues to pay to buy them.
More
worrisome, it’s the low levels at which they are administered for
growth promotion or “disease prevention” that is more likely to
give rise to huge populations of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
