Antibiotic use

[atarasi]

There was a great article in the NFSS bulletin regarding the dangers of antibiotic use. It's a bit long to re-type, so I'm paraphrasing....

Oxytetracycline is described as a broad sprectrum antibiotic which makes it sound ideal. The fact it's over the counter which makes it inexpensive, but this is the first warning sign.

Antibiotic resistance is very important problem in modern science. Antibiotic resistance develops throught the use of an antibiotic which kills the susceptible organisms and leaves the resistant ones behind to produce future generations. When this happens, we choose another antibiotic and move on. With so many antibiotics available, why is resistance a problem in bacteria? The answer is very small and it's called a plasmid.

Bacteria have genetic material in their nucleus known as RNA as opposed to DNA in animals. When bacteria develops resistance to an antibiotic, it is through mutation of genes in its RNA similar to how we obtain new colors in birds. Where birds can only pass on this genetic change to their offspring, bacteria have small pieces of RNA call plasmids that are available for transfer between adult bacteria.

What does this mean? Bacteria that develop resistance to an antibiotic can pass it on not just to their own offspring, but to all their neighbors and even to bacteria that is completely different. Through the use of antibiotics, a harmless bacteria that is meant to live in our bowel might develop resitance and then pass it on to a disease causing bacteria down the road. Every single use of antibiotics effects in small degrees the overall level of resistance of bacteria in the world. It's important to kill all the bacteria and not lease any to develop resistance which means to use antibiotics as directed and for the full prescription.

The reason why a lot of over the counter antibiotics are available is because many of them are sulphur based and date back to WWII. These predate to the laws regarding antibiotic use.

By using one ineffective antibiotic, the bird breeders might be inadvertently promoting resistance to dozens of other drugs. Oxytetracycline is not absorbed from the intestinal tract of birds which means that virtually none reaches area of the body that are affected by disease and instead the antibotic concentrates in the bowel where it kills the good bacteria.

Many breeders believe that oxytetracycline saved their birds life. Quite simply the bird was going to survive anyway. This drug (according to the author) has not saved a single avian life in the past two or three decades, but has contributed to thousands of deaths.

[dfcauley]

Thank you for that information. I ordered an antibiotic long back when I first begin with birds and one got sick. I never used it because it was so discouraged on this site.

I still have it in case of emergency, but am always hesitant to use it.
Sometthing just keeps telling me no.........

[atarasi]

Using antibiotics is fine, just make sure you know for sure what your bird has and that you're using the correct medication as well as using it as prescribed. The author feels strongly that if you don't want/afford to visit an avian vet for proper diagnoses, to humanly euthanize the bird.

[atarasi]

I just realized I posted this in the wrong section!