If you have been following along with my Modern Farming Series you know I am talking about how our modern farming techniques help us to use less antibiotics with our animals. Our goal is to have healthier cows and that means happier cows and less antibiotic use. It makes me happy to see dusty bottles of medicine on my office shelf because that means we are succeeding in these other segments. If you would like to read Part 1 about the environment we keep the cows in and Part 2 about how we feed our cows for their health, I would be so thrilled!
One of the biggest ways we help keep our cows healthy is through healthcare. In a way it is similar to us doctoring, but better. On our farm we have scheduled days where our veterinarian comes out. In case you don’t know, a cow vet is just like a vet for your dog. He or she is a doctor that specializes in cows and other larger animals. Dr. Chad is our veterinarian and we thoroughly enjoy working with him. We consult with him and the other veterinarians who work in his practice on almost everything. He monitors and recommends treatments of diseases and aliments that cows can get. He helps us to set up preventative measures such as vaccination, which I will talk more about later.
In order to receive a medicine prescription we have to regularly meet and work with a licensed veterinarian. This is an effort to help prevent farmers from using them wrong and having antibiotics enter the human food chain in any way. The USDA has rules like to this to make sure medicine does not get in the wrong hands. By bringing in a veterinarian we are lucky to have another set of eyes to find problems, to talk to us about things that could be a challenge depending on the year and other things we need to be thinking about.
One of the most important ways we prevent disease is through vaccinating our animals. Just like you get vaccinated and your kids get vaccinated, we vaccinate our cows. We worked closely with Dr. Chad and other industry professionals that specialize in cattle health to set up a vaccination schedule that fits our farm and our cows. We regularly review it and revise it when we need to. Our goal is to try and prevent any diseases but we do not want to over vaccinate them either and deplete their immune system.
By finding the ideal program we are optimizing the health of our cows. This helps us to help prevent antibiotic use in our cows. Like I said in Part 1 and Part 2 of the series, we work hard to prevent antibiotic use by using all of the modern resources and technology we can.
If you have any other questions I would love to hear them. I am hoping to do a 5th part to the series to answer questions I get from readers.
