Advantage Good Agricultural Practices Manual

9.1 Animal Health Product Use

Improper use of animal health products can:

• Reduce product effectiveness
• Cause physical contamination (e.g. broken needles)
• Lead to antimicrobial resistance
• Result in drug residues in meat, milk, eggs, honey or other products of animal origin
  
  

This Good Agricultural Practice applies to:

All farms using animal health products.

Examples of animal health products: Antimicrobials, vaccines, parasite control products, hormones, vitamins, alternative health products, medicated feed, and water-soluble medicines.

What needs to be done

Use animal health products properly to avoid excessive residues and broken needles.

How to do it

Develop written practices for animal health product use

Written practices include:

• Choosing the right animal health product
• Proper product use and handling
• Use of equipment to apply or administer animal health products
  
  

Choose the right animal health product

Establish a valid client-patient-veterinary relationship with your veterinarian. This relationship is defined differently by each veterinarian.

Seek veterinary advice when selecting animal health products to reduce risks of ineffective treatment, drug residues, antimicrobial resistance and environmental contamination.

Make sure animal health products are approved for use in the species and for the condition being treated.

If an approved animal health product is not available for treatment of a species, let your veterinarian select a product to use.

Obtain a valid veterinary prescription if animal health products or medicated feeds are to be used in an extra-label manner.

Use and handle products properly

Use all animal health products according to label and package insert instructions or according to the direction of your veterinarian.

DO NOT USE expired animal health products.

Dispose of outdated or unused animal health products, medicated feeds and administration equipment (e.g. needles and syringes) in a manner that does not pose a food safety hazard. For more information, refer to 6.4 Storage and Disposal of Farm Wastes in this manual.

Make sure you measure accurately so that correct concentrations and dosages are achieved.

Store and mix animal health products in clean, correctly labelled containers. For more information on storage, refer to 6.3 Storage of Potentially Hazardous Products in this manual.

Follow proper withdrawal periods to avoid drug residues in milk, eggs and meat.

Use equipment for animal health products properly

Whenever you use equipment to dispense, apply or mix an animal health product, clean and flush the equipment between uses to avoid cross-contamination of medications or unnecessary injury to animals. Handle all animals with care so that animal health products are effectively delivered.

Use needles of appropriate size, based on animal age and weight, route of product delivery and viscosity of product. Consult your veterinarian if unsure.

Discard needles when they become contaminated, dirty, bent or burred.

If mixing medicated feed on-farm, use sequencing or flushing practices to prevent contamination between mixes.

Operate and maintain water medicators and medicated feed mixing equipment according to manufacturers' directions. For more information, refer to 3.1 Equipment Maintenance and Calibration in this manual.

Refer to CFIA requirements for livestock feed.

Did you know?

You will find an example of a written practice in the Training and Support Tools section.

Terms used in this Good Agricultural Practice

Approved animal health product: A health product that has passed a Health Canada regulatory process and can be legally sold in Canada. Animal health products are available as non-prescription items (over the counter) or by veterinary prescription only.

Drug residues: Amount of animal health product that may be found in meat, eggs, milk, honey or fish at the point of sale. Health Canada determines what limits are considered safe. Residues below the defined maximum limit are legal; residues above the defined maximum limit are illegal and the lot cannot be sold for human consumption.

Extra-label or off-label use: The use or intended use of a drug approved by Health Canada in an animal in a manner not in accordance with the label or package insert. It also includes the use of all unapproved drugs, including unapproved bulk active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and compounded drugs.

Withdrawal period: The recommended minimum time between the last use of an animal health product and the slaughter of an animal for food or the harvesting of milk or eggs from treated animals or birds for human consumption.

Did you know?

Veterinary prescriptions cannot be filled at a licensed livestock
medicines retail outlet. They must be filled by your veterinarian, another licensed veterinarian (when your veterinarian is unavailable),a pharmacist, or a feed mill (for medicated feed only).

Livestock Medicines Education Program (LMEP)
The LMEP offered at Ridgetown College provides training on how to use, store and discard animal health products.

For more information, call 1-877-480-9992 or visit their website.

Penicillin

Depending on the population, between approximately 3 and 10 percent of people have an allergy to penicillin. This group is at risk of experiencing an allergic reaction when consuming meats or milk that contains penicillin residues. Penicillin derivatives have been widely used for treating disease in cattle, sheep, swine and poultry. It clears quickly from the bodies of treated livestock; however, residues can accumulate in the kidneys and liver. Penicillin is available for purchase by farmers over the counter and does not require a veterinary prescription when administered according to label directions. However, the tendency with penicillin is to use greater doses than specified on the label (extra-label use). If this is the case, a veterinary prescription is required for verification of dosages to use and withdrawal times to observe. It is very important that livestock and poultry producers do not expose anyone to allergic reactions to penicillin residues from the extra-label use of this antibiotic.

Records to keep

• Written practices for animal health product use
• All veterinary prescriptions and product inserts
  
  
• Animal Health Product Use Record. We have provided a record template for your use in the Training and Support Tools section. A printable version is also available. Or keep your own record that includes:
  • Date applied
  • Animal/pen/flock identification
  • Reason for application/treatment
  • Name of product used, including DIN
  • Application or treatment method, including injection location
  • Amount applied and/or dosage used (may include weight of animal)
  • Withdrawal period required or date safe for slaughter or milking
  • Treatment failures (e.g. broken needles)
  • Initials of the person who gave the treatment
    
    
• Appropriate records for any medicated feeds that are mixed on-farm
  
  

When the wrong treatment is given

• Clearly identify the affected animal, pen and/or flock.
• Consult your veterinarian for next steps.

If you need an audit

Be prepared for the auditor to review:

• Written practices for animal health product use
• All veterinary prescriptions
• Product insertsAnimal Health Product Use Records
  

Did you know?

In 2000, 200 tonnes of pork products produced in Quebec were recalled after carbadox residue was found. Carbadox is a growth promoter that has a 35-day withdrawal period. A veterinarian discovered some pig farmers were giving their animals carbadox only days before slaughter and not observing the withdrawal period. Carbadox is now completely banned for use in Canada as research has shown it can cause cancer in humans.

Laws and regulations that apply

There are a number of laws that directly impact on food safety regulating the use of animal health products in agricultural production. However, this section refers only to the use of animal health products that may be used to control diseases that may be spread to humans through food consumption. It does not include any laws or regulations relating to the use of products to control rabies, West Nile Virus or other such diseases that cannot be spread through eating the food made from the animal or plant.

All animal health products used on-farm must be authorized for agricultural production, approved under various federal and provincial laws and regulations, and sold and used in accordance with these laws. They include the Food and Drugs Act (Canada), R.S. 1985, c. F-27, Food and Drug Regulation, Division 15; Pest Control Products Act (Canada), R.S. c. P-9; and requirements of the Pesticide Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P-11 and R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 914; Feeds Act (Canada), R.S. 1985, c. F-9; and the Hazardous Products Act (Canada), R.S. 1985, c. H-3.

Pesticides, food additives, veterinary drugs, vitamins, mineral nutrients and amino acids must not cause contamination of foods as listed in the Food and Drugs Act (Canada), R.S. 1985, c. F-27, Food and Drug Regulations, Division 15. Under the Food Safety and Quality Act, 2001, Meat Regulations, food animals are contaminated by definition if they contain or have been treated or exposed to a substance not permitted by, or in an amount in excess of, limits prescribed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (Canada), the Food and Drugs Act (Canada) or the Pest Control Products Act (Canada).

The Livestock Medicine Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L. 23 and Regulation R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 730, s. 8 (1) requires that any warning on the label be brought to the attention of the purchaser by the licensed seller.

The Veterinarians Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. V. 3, s. 11 provides that farmers or their household members or agricultural employees do not need to be a licensed veterinarian in order to treat their own animals. However, off-label use requires veterinary advice or other legal approval. Veterinarians who dispense drugs or substances for food-producing animals must advise recipients of appropriate withholding times (during which the animal cannot be sold for consumption) and display this information on the drug container, including where the drug will be used differently than the use or dosage that is customary or recommended by the manufacturer (s. 31). Certain drugs that require more caution, due to their potential poisonous effects, require the purchaser to sign a record (s. 29).

Did you know?

Some topical insecticides, such as Lysoff, require a Grower Pesticide Safety Course certificate to purchase.

To identify which products require a certificate, refer to the Ontario Pesticide Advisory Committee's website.

For information on the Grower Pesticide Safety Course, refer to the Ontario Pesticide Education Program website.

Proceed to 9.2 Bedding Use