organic animals

[kopend]

do "organic" animals suffer more than none organic animals
ie they dont get wormed and when they are ill they dont get antibiotics etc as easily as none organic?

[LoftyLottie]

I hope this puts your mind at rest.

Antibiotics, growth promoters and other additives are added to non-organic meat during the animal's life and while the meat is prepared for consumption. Normal intensive farming methods mean that animals live in overcrowded, unhealthy conditions where disease would quickly spread through the herd were antibiotics not used. Although antibiotics are still used to treat organically reared animals, the healthier living conditions of the animals mean that antibiotics are used prudently to treat specific ailments, rather than as a preventative method."

Sick animals are treated where necessary with antibiotics if they are ill. Non organic animals are given antibiotics routinely in case they get ill (which is quite likely due to their cramped living conditions and stress caused by other inhumane methods).

I cannot comment about 'worming' although I feel sure this still must take place.

[LoftyLottie]

My second paragraph was a quote by the way. I forgot the first quotation marks!

[Illyria54]

Organic farmed animals only get antibiotics if they are sick, factory farmed animals are fed antibiotics and hormones as a matter of course and in turn you or I ingest these when we eat the meat or drink the milk!

[wise one]

antibiotics and growth hormones which are routinely fed to intensivelly farmed animals in foreign countries (such as Argentinian/Brazilian beef) doesn't apply in the UK. These drugs are banned from this country. animals are mostly vaccinated against worms etc, but these medicines have a withdrawral period, where animals aren't allowed into the food chain until the medicine has passed through their systems. 'Organic' referes to the animal's diet,i'e, they are fed on organic fodder which doesn't use artificial fertilizer or pesticides etc.

[Noweia]

It's a very good question.

I feel that the previous two answers are combing 'organic' with 'free range' and 'non-organic' with 'factory'.

Hormones are not allowed to be used as therapeutic agents or in feed in UK farm animals. Antimicrobial growth promoters have also been banned in the EU, so farm animals should not be eating antibiotics either!!!

Animals in non-organic systems do not get antibiotics 'routinely in case they get ill', they get them if they get a specified bacterial condition which the antibiotics would improve.

In answer to the original question, animals in organic systems get the same veterinary treatment as animals in non-organic systems. However the withdrawal periods for these drugs (e.g. antibiotics) are longer than with standard systems. Where organic systems differ is that prophylactic treatments e.g. vaccines are less lilely to be used. They may still be used when there is evidence of a particular disease. Organophosphates are not allowed to be used at all.

In organic systems, groups of animals aren't allowed to be treated (for instance in a bacterial disease outbreak, you can't treat all the animals in contact with the affected animal with antibiotics) but rather other management factors are used to try and reduce disease spread.

It is true that in some places (and I have experienced this myself) that the animals are less likely to get veterinary attention when they are sick, and this can lead to decreased animal welfare. In some organic farms we do see more disease, and that can be due to reduced likelihood to use certain drugs.

However in most cases farmers are quick to get disease and illness under control.

The Soil Association have an article here:

16:56 Tue 26th Feb 2008

[kopend]

thank you everybody

[andrea81]

Right - I know first hand that YES they do! Organic means that they have not been given antibiotics. Thus protecting them from deceases!

Of those animals that pass through to slaughter, the ones that are 'Organic' are often in a terrible state!

Sorry, but any literature is failing to give the actual reality of what is seen on a daily basis! Sick organic animals! Sorry to burst anyones bubble!

[pastafreak]

Andrea-if you know 'first-hand'..it might be helpful if you described how,when and where. I would have thought that the controls set in place by both the government and the Soil Association would prevent sick animals going to slaughter on a regular basis.

[LoftyLottie]

Well, I was only speaking from personal experience too. I presume it depends on the farmer concerned and their own animal husbandry. That is pretty obvious.