Resolving The Antibiotic Issue

The gamebird sector has made an impressive start to reducing use of antibiotics – but complacency could threaten more than just our sport

- Charles Nodder

RECENT news that antibiotic use in gamebirds has been slashed in a single year is great for shooting but many guns are unaware of the background to this. Aurofac, Denagard and other common antibiotic brands may be household names to gamekeepers and game farmers but few in the gunline pay them much attention. They should, because successful resolution of the antibiotic issue could well determine the future of the sport.

Political pressure to reduce all antibiotics in livestock rearing has been building across the world, driven by the evolution of resistant bugs and fears that human healthcare could be “cast back into the dark ages of medicine”, as David Cameron put it at the time of a G7 leaders discussion in 2014. The then PM commissioned Lord O’Neill to look into the issue and his report, since endorsed by Government, urged all farm sectors to cut usage wherever possible. Reared gamebirds, being livestock, were included.

Antibiotic use in game production grew steadily from about 1980. The new “wonder drugs” were administered in compounded game feed or as soluble treatments and they came to be regarded by game rearers and their vets as something of a panacea, addressing the particular disease challenges posed by outdoor rearing, inclement weather and the stress-related conditions that always complicate the confinement of naturally aggressive birds. At that time, no downsides were known and the easy insurance provided by “a bit of Denagard in the food”, or something similar, became habit forming and eventually the norm.