YES on telemed! The rule is only that you must see the animal/farm once a year in person. Charge $60 a telemed video chat for less severe stuff. I would LOVE this, and I live 15 minutes from my vet. Think how much it would alleviate vet time if we could call because ‘dobbin has this nasty skin infection, can I get a cream for it?’ ‘Horse has hives all over. Can I get a script?’ Plus the vet still gets paid. Which, considering how much vet school they go through vs how much they make, that important. (it’s kind of no wonder we keep loosing them to other professions or to companies needing pathologists to pay $400k a year to)
And yes, people absolutely need to take stock in the relationships they have. Things have been changing and many have just stuck their heads in the sand, and now that it’s the witching hour, people are crying UNFAIR. But also yes, the struggle IS real for many, but that’s also not new, it’s just getting more widespread so it’s catching those who have had the good life off guard
Amen to that. Between using expired meds, under-dosing, not finishing the course, using the wrong drug, it’s just awful
Thanks for the reference. I was posting about my experience in 1986. I mentioned that I had no lab to be able to do a Gram stain or C&S, no vet in town, and a horse with a quite large swelling, fever, malaise, not eating, and foul yellow purulent material when I did my I&D. My clinical judgement was that an antibiotic was appropriate at the time.
My vets actually want me to come get the meds after I have described the situation ( unless it is an emergency of course) It does really help when the vet knows you well and trusts your ability to read your animals. Thankfully they do farm and after hours calls just in case.
It’s all dependent on the area. I, too, live in an area where I have minimal vets and don’t trust them. Just one instance of why (sorry, this is long):
A few years ago I had a foal born, who at 2 days old developed bloody diarrhea in the middle of a Friday night and was colicing. I called my local vet, surprisingly got a hold of the clinic, and took mare and baby in. He quickly accurately diagnosed (based on clinical symptoms) with clostridiosis. What he failed to do was prescribe the correct antibiotics (gentamicin, which clostridium is not sensitive to). He also failed to educate me on just how devastating and infectious this disease was. I took the colt home on banamine and antibiotics.
By noon the next day, the colt was no worse, but also no better. Colicing, not nursing, still had diarrhea. Unfortunately this colt was not one that I could pour thousands of dollars in to at the university, a little over an hour away. So I called the clinic so I could have the colt euthanized. After-hours and weekends go through a call service. They could not get a hold of the vet.
A few hours went by of me calling and re-calling. No answer back from the vet. I finally got so furious that I decided I was going to take him to the university, against my best judgement. Finally I get a call back from the call service and they informed me that the vet I had seen 16 hours prior was out of town on vacation, none of the other vets in the clinic were available, and gave me the number of a guy from another clinic who was acting as the “on call” for the weekend.
When I called him, he informed me that he was an hour and a half away preg checking cows, that he doesn’t really do horses, and certainly doesn’t do foals. I seriously just needed someone to euthanize a foal who was suffering. That’s it.
I followed through with taking him to the university, and after 2 1/2 days and around $5k, he died. I should have just had them euthanize but they thought he had a chance if we treated.
Since I had more foals due that year, I did my best to sanitize everything in preparation. But still ended up with a second case, this time in a very sentimental and high dollar baby. She too went to the university, and lived. But I will never forgive anyone from my local clinic (or area in general) for that whole ordeal.
My local vet now only gets my business for routine things (coggins, health certs) or situations where a horse won’t survive the hour + trip to the university or my highly competent equine vet in another state. The vets at the local clinic hardly do farm calls anymore too. Even in emergencies that I cannot bring to the clinic. I had a mare down with a brain aneurism a few years ago, unable to stand, and they had the audacity to ask why I can’t put her on the trailer to bring her in. I was finally able to get someone out, but seriously, this is just the situation some of us have to deal with.
I envy those who have vets close by that they can trust. I have a few vets that I trust wholeheartedly, but that clinic is still an hour and a half away in another state. We have an excellent relationship and have done consultations over the phone, even in the middle of the night, they appreciate that they can speak candidly with me, and I can ask the questions that lead to educational conversations.
Sorry for the novel. Not exactly related to the OP. But it’s somewhat off-putting that people don’t realize the difficulties some of us have with quality veterinary care in rural areas. I have seriously contemplated moving to a more competent area. But the job and family keep me where I am.
There are only a few available OTC, and they’re not the “usual” ones we use on horses (like SMZ.)
But injectible penicillin & oxytet are a couple that get some use. Along with the cow mastitis syringes (to treat foot funk, or punctures.) You can scroll through tractor supply and take a peek:
Local feed store people are often the worst when it comes to why something is being done. This has nothing to do with people using these on themselves, and everything to do with the crisis that is antibiotic resistance
If those farmers actually have a VCPR they they can ask their vet for the drug, especially if the vet knows they’ve been safely doing these castrations for a while
Why? It’s an antibiotic that’s critical to be able to resolve mastitis issues in cows. All intrammary drugs like this are included, not just Today/Tomorrow. Add to that how many horse people who use the stuff as the first sign they THINK there’s thrush without any actual idea, or that other non-abx methods could clear it up, and it’s a big problem.
As a science teacher, I teach antibiotic resistance until I am blue in the face. It’s in the curriculum for nearly every science course.
Yet people still don’t get it. Intelligent, educated people can’t appreciate what a huge problem it is. Plus, no one thinks they are part of the problem.
Getting rid of over the counter antibiotics here, does nothing to prevent antibiotic resistance. If we have learned anything from COVID, it is that international travel allows things to spread around the world. Antibiotic resistance in India or China can easily spread to America. So all those other countries that have antibiotics over the counter are a big big problem.
The use of antibiotics in factory farming where they treat every chicken on the property should be banned. If people lose chickens that is sad, but is it better to lose some chickens, then develop super strains of bacteria. Not to mention the contamination of meat with bacteria, that is carried into people’s homes when they bring it home from the store. Exposure doesn’t necessarily mean that someone gets ill but they can carry it.
I would not be at all surprised to learn that I am still carrying C. Diff, even though it’s been 4 or 5 years now since I had clinical signs. And let me just say, C. Diff laughed at every antibiotic we threw at it. I picked it up from the dentist office, I think? Community spread.
But banning antibiotics does create an animal welfare issue, because there are people out there that won’t get a vet up. Most people won’t take a chicken, duck, or gerbil into the vet no matter what happens.
Nothing prevents resistance. But more control at least slows the resistance. And rampant mis-use of many of them in the US has increased the amount and severity of resistance.
Until the feed lot industry is regulated to some point where the animals are fed like the animals are supposed to eat, and housed in much more sanitary conditions, they will continue to require abx to live long enough to get to the slaughterhouse. Feeding feed-lot cattle the tons of corn they get to be “finished” greatly disrupts their gut bacteria which is what makes them require antibiotics to not die, or be too sick to send to slaughter…
I will run to the tack store next week to get more of the Today stuff for thrush.
One of the reasons it works so well is that marvelous tip that lets me get the medicine right where the thrush is even if it is deep in the sulcus.
Do you think that the other thrush medicines will come up with a more effective delivery system than drops that do not go down as deep to target the thrush?
I fully understand the ban and support it, as a horse owner I’m fine as I have access to good local vets.
As a goat and future sheep owner, I’m terrified. Its difficult and darn near impossible to find a goat vet that will come out for anything other than dire emergencies.