Mastering Meds

How to comply with the Red Tractor Assurance Standards

Some important changes to Red Tractor Assurance standards came into effect from 1 June 2018.

We are keen to help you comply with these new regulations with minimal disruption to your business, while maintaining animal health and welfare.

Please visit bit.ly/PenRTAS to view the four new standards relating to responsible use of antibiotics on Red Tractor Farms.

In brief they are:

Standard 1: Medicine records must provide an annual collation of total antibiotic used for the unit

Penbode can provide you with a collation of what you have purchased from the practice over the last 12 months.

Standard 2: An annual review of antibiotics used must be undertaken by the vet

We will review your antibiotic usage at your herd health review. We then produce a spreadsheet and graphs which flags up high use of CIAs or at risk drugs.

Standard 3: Highest priority critically important antibiotics must only be used as a last resort under veterinary direction

Following is a list of the critically important antibiotics which are only to be used as a last resort.

· Naxcel

· Cevaxel/Readycef/Excenel

· Cobactan – tubes and injection

· Cephaguard Dry Cow

· Cefimam Milking Cow and Dry Cow tubes

· Marbocyl/Forcyl

· Baytril Max

· Advocin 180

Their use must be supported by sensitivity testing which proves that no other antibiotics will work. While this is extremely unlikely to be the case, we can conduct the testing for you.

All of our vets are able to recommend alternative treatment options for you.

Standard 4: It is recommended that at least one member of staff responsible for administering medicines has undertaken training and holds a certificate of competence.

Training courses include but are not limited to MilkSure and veterinary-run training courses. Penbode has run MilkSure courses for our dairy farmers in the past and will continue to do so.

Even if you have attended a MilkSure course we would recommend you book one of our mastering medicines courses as the subject matter will be very different.

See our Mastering Medicines Course Dates link for the next course