Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Potential impacts on animal health and welfare of raising animals without antibiotics

View ORCID ProfileRandall S. Singer, View ORCID ProfileLeah J. Porter, Daniel U. Thomson, Mallory Gage, Amanda Beaudoin, Jennifer K. Wishnie
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/600965
Randall S. Singer
1Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America
2Mindwalk Consulting Group, LLC, Falcon Heights, Minnesota, United States of America
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Randall S. Singer
  • For correspondence: rsinger@umn.edu
Leah J. Porter
2Mindwalk Consulting Group, LLC, Falcon Heights, Minnesota, United States of America
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Leah J. Porter
Daniel U. Thomson
3Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States of America
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Mallory Gage
4Gage Group Consulting, LLC, Denver, Colorado, United States of America
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Amanda Beaudoin
1Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jennifer K. Wishnie
5Department of Animal Science, California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, California, United States of America
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Ensuring the safety, health, and overall well-being of animals raised for food is both an ethical obligation and a critical component of providing safe food products. The use of antibiotics for maintaining animal health has come under scrutiny in recent years due to the rise of antibiotic resistance globally. Some U.S. producers, especially in the poultry industry, have responded by eliminating their antibiotic use. The number of animals raised without antibiotics (RWA) is growing in the U.S., but there are concerns that RWA practices might negatively impact animal health and welfare. Therefore, the objective of this survey was to investigate the impacts of RWA production on key parameters such as animal health and welfare, food safety, cost of food production, and consumer demand. Veterinarians, farmers, ranchers, producers, and other stakeholders involved in raising broilers, turkeys, swine, beef cattle or dairy cattle were surveyed. Of the 565 completed responses received, the majority of respondents self-reported as practicing veterinarians or producers. Just over half of respondents reported having past or current experience with RWA programs. The main indicated reasons for raising animals without antibiotics were market driven; switching to RWA production was less commonly made for health-related reasons, such as to reduce antibiotic resistance or to improve animal health and welfare. Although respondents felt that RWA production has negative impacts on animal health and welfare, they overwhelmingly indicated that the customer (retailer/restaurant/food service) believes that animal and health welfare will be significantly improved. Veterinarians and producers indicated that RWA programs will increase production costs with questionable effect on meat, egg or dairy consumer demand. Many respondents felt that there are times when the RWA label takes priority over animal health and welfare. Respondents generally felt that there was a need for increased auditing/assessment of animal health and welfare in RWA systems.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted April 12, 2019.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Potential impacts on animal health and welfare of raising animals without antibiotics
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Potential impacts on animal health and welfare of raising animals without antibiotics
Randall S. Singer, Leah J. Porter, Daniel U. Thomson, Mallory Gage, Amanda Beaudoin, Jennifer K. Wishnie
bioRxiv 600965; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/600965
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Potential impacts on animal health and welfare of raising animals without antibiotics
Randall S. Singer, Leah J. Porter, Daniel U. Thomson, Mallory Gage, Amanda Beaudoin, Jennifer K. Wishnie
bioRxiv 600965; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/600965

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Epidemiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4086)
  • Biochemistry (8761)
  • Bioengineering (6479)
  • Bioinformatics (23339)
  • Biophysics (11750)
  • Cancer Biology (9149)
  • Cell Biology (13247)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7416)
  • Ecology (11369)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15087)
  • Genetics (10398)
  • Genomics (14009)
  • Immunology (9121)
  • Microbiology (22040)
  • Molecular Biology (8779)
  • Neuroscience (47366)
  • Paleontology (350)
  • Pathology (1420)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2482)
  • Physiology (3704)
  • Plant Biology (8050)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1431)
  • Synthetic Biology (2208)
  • Systems Biology (6016)
  • Zoology (1249)