This study describes antimicrobial use in 22 U.S. beef feedyards by use of two metrics: milligrams of antimicrobial per kilogram of liveweight sold (mg/kg‐LW) and antimicrobial regimens per animal year (Reg/AY). The primary objectives were to determine the feasibility of collecting antimicrobial use data at the level of the production system and to identify factors unique to feedyard systems which may confound interpretation of summarized antimicrobial use measures. Records were accessed directly from feedyards or through a data intermediary and then subjected to a process of standardization and quality assurance. Use is reported at the study level with all individual cattle lots from all feedyards combined, as well as at the feedyard level where values were first calculated for each feedyard and then expressed as means, standard deviations and median values. Use at the study level is first reported by antimicrobial class and then by antimicrobial class within the use categories of in‐feed, control of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) and individual animal treatment. Due to wide variations of antimicrobial class within use category, feedyard level antimicrobial use is reported only by antimicrobial class. Use values for medically important and not medically important antimicrobial classes are reported separately. Regimens are described for each antimicrobial class within use category by milligrams per regimen and by timeframe from first to last administration. The authors’ selection of measures reported here was driven by a desire to minimize necessary assumptions, resulting in transparent reporting of values which can be directly related back to the factors within feedyard systems which may have influenced calculations. Reporting the number of regimens stratified by antimicrobial class within use category and then describing the characteristics of the reported regimens (milligrams per regimen and timeframe) optimize these objectives for reporting.

The objective of this study was to evaluate agreement between medically important antimicrobial use metrics derived from in‐person surveys of feedyard management as opposed to metrics derived from production unit‐level antimicrobial use records. Survey respondents were asked to estimate values which would allow calculation of the metrics of regimens per animal year (Reg/AY) and milligrams of antimicrobial per kilogram of liveweight sold (mg/kg‐LW). At the study level, values were calculated by antimicrobial class within the use categories of in‐feed use, control of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) and individual animal treatment. At the feedyard level, values were calculated by total overall use and total use within use category. Feedyard level correlation coefficients between survey and record values for total use were 0.76 (p = .0004) and 0.73 (p = .0009) for Reg/AY and mg/kg‐LW, respectively. Correlation coefficients for use category within metric ranged from 0.25 (p = .3224) to 0.65 (p = .0061). Comparing feedyard level survey and record values for total Reg/AY and mg/kg‐LW using a Wilcoxon signed‐rank test resulted in p‐values (95% CI) of 0.3247 (−1.06, 0.25) and 0.7019 (−14.49, 10.387), respectively. Evaluation of comparative rankings as total use by metric indicated that for Reg/AY, only two of the five top‐ranked feedyards were consistent between the two data sources. The relationship for mg/kg‐LW demonstrated the lowest two and highest three values were consistent between sources; however, the ranking similarities appear to markedly decline in the middle ranks. This report demonstrates that survey‐based antimicrobial use data may closely reflect summary values determined from records across multiple beef feedyards. However, individual feedyard relationships between their record and survey values vary widely and ranking by survey may lead to different conclusions as to highest and lowest use than ranking by data collected from use records.

No abstract

Antimicrobial use in livestock is under increasing scrutiny by various regulatory, industry, and consumer groups. It is likely that in the future, production systems will be required to document antimicrobial use in order to have access to some supply chains. Regardless of from what direction this requirement comes, the veterinarian is in a unique position to help guide the formation and the application of this "documentation". There are clearly many ways to define, measure, and document antimicrobial use. This project focuses on differentiating measures that would be useful tools for managing antimicrobial use for infectious disease from those that are suitable only for monitoring macrotrends related to use reduction.