05/18/2023
When people say they will only eat “antibiotic free” meat, I would love to show them this picture. How would you feel if you had a case of pink eye and didn’t go to the doctor to get medicine to make it better? I would assume the burning in the eye would be quite painful. The same is true for animals.
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One of my calves had pink eye, and I (the doctor) gave him a spray in his eye and an antibiotic to help heal his infection. If we can take antibiotics when we are sick, why can’t we expect our animals to do the same?
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This is the first time this animal has ever been given an antibiotic, and hopefully it’s the last. But if I didn’t treat him knowing he had a bacterial infection in his eye, he would suffer in pain for a few weeks, completely loose vision out of that eye, and potentially loose the entire eye if the infection got bad enough. That’s a better end result than giving an antibiotic to heal the eye in a few days? I would beg to differ.
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You see, since he was given a shot, that does not mean that there will be antibiotics in his meat. Every single antibiotic has a withdrawal period on the label. After the minimum withdrawal days have gone by, the medicine will be completely out of his system and his body will be antibiotic free. ALL animals are antibiotic free because of required withdrawal periods, and every animal that enters a processing facility is tested before butcher to make sure there is no antibiotics in their system. If there is, the animal is rejected and will not be butchered.
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Pink eye is a very contagious disease and can cause many issues this time of the year. Luckily, we have only had a few calves who have gotten it, but if we didn’t treat those few animals it could potentially spread like wild fire into the rest of the herd. And that is NOT a good day if that would happen.
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Did you know ALL meat is antibiotic free because of withdrawal periods? Leave your response in the comments below 👇🏻
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