As a producer using Veterinary Feed Drug Orders (VFD) on your farm, your responsibilities are to feed only the animal feed bearing or containing a VFD drug or combination drug to the animals listed and properly identified on the VFD Order. You are required to correctly apply VFD Orders and retain all VFD Orders for two (2) years, producing them for inspection when requested to do so.
VFD Orders may be stored electronically or as hard copy paper, so you will need to figure out the best method of maintaining these records on your farm. UW-Extension agents Sandy Stuttgen and Bill Halfman have developed a VFD Order Records Summary Sheet which will help you to organize the application of multiple VFD Orders, either into hand-written, hard copy files or electronically on your computer. Yo
Additional information regarding VFDs and the over-arching topic of antibiotic resistance is being discussed at several beef meetings around WI in February. Check out our Calendar and make plans to attend a meeting near you. The FDA maintains a website, Veterinary Feed Directive Producer Requirements, which details everything about VFDs:
The first thing you can do right now in preparation for using VFD Orders on your farm is to inventory the drugs you are currently using: do they contain antibiotics which are now impacted by VFD? Will you be able to get these in the future? Do you need to continue to use them?
Walk your farm: identify the hazards which contribute to your risk for needing antibiotics: practice the process of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, (for those of you trained in BQA, you know what HACCP entails). Re-evaluate those hazards, figure out ways to fix them which do not include the use of antibiotics; in other words, re-define your Control Points: vaccination strategies, backgrounding, stocking rates, ventilation, ration balancing, application of micro & macro minerals and vitamins, etc.
You can solicit non-veterinary help to organize this process: look to your farm advisors including Extension agents and nutritionists; attend a BQA certification or get re-certified: as this program covers all the objectives concerning best management practices, especially those regarding antibiotic use.
Somewhat like a prescription, you obtain VFD Orders from your veterinarian whom you have a valid Veterinary Client Patient Relationship (VCPR) with. So it behooves you to find, hire and keep a veterinarian on your team.