posted on Wednesday, March 1, 2017 in AMVC Veterinarians in the News
Paul Thomas, a veterinarian with AMVC Management Services in Audubon, said the company started working with its clients well before the implementation of the VFD rule to make sure it remained in compliance with the FDA's rules. AMVC works with multiple owners and multiple pig flows that are spread out geographically.
"That all adds up to a lot of VFDs," Thomas said. So they started talking months in advance of the implementation to prepare, he said. They mapped out all of their sites by pig flow or pig source, owner, mill, vets with valid VCPR and medication used.
"It was a great opportunity to review all of our current feed budgets by flow and medication program," said Thomas. Through the process, they were also able to identify gaps in the system that needed to be reworked before the VFD implementation, he said.
"We found that our current method of record-keeping probably wasn't good enough. We would record feed deliveries and ticket numbers. We added an additional step of documentation about when we started feeding that medicated feed to the pigs and when we stopped," he said.
This helps in complying with the VFD rule, since a part of it is working with a veterinarian to decide what medication should be used, at what dose and for a determined duration. Though AMVC is still working to improve its record-keeping, Thomas said the changes they've made have been helpful.
"Communication is key; communication well ahead of time is key as well," Thomas said.
Credit to: Bethany Baratta, Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman. Full article printed 2/15/17.