Chickens: How Does Commercial Farms Deal With Egg Withdrawal Periods?

[Henlus]

Isn’t it too bad for business? How do they go around it? Imagine throwing away eggs for up to 5-7 days every time you give them certain antibiotics. How do they get around this?

[FarmKing]

Do we really care about withdrawal here in Africa?

[Donk]

Africa's poultry industry is not regulated like those of advanced countries. So they don't really care about that. But I'm interested to know how farms in advanced countries react to it. Would they throw away thousands of eggs when they medicate? Or maybe they practice 100% biosecurity and do serological monitoring and other stuffs. So they don't have problems with diseases as we do.

[Henlus]

Africa's poultry industry is not regulated like those of advanced countries. So they don't really care about that. But I'm interested to know how farms in advanced countries react to it. Would they throw away thousands of eggs when they medicate? Or maybe they practice 100% biosecurity and do serological monitoring and other stuffs. So they don't have problems with diseases as we do.

I agree with you. They keep their chickens in a kind of sterile environment. They're in environmentally controlled and enclosed buildings from start to finish. I also found that their workers are not allowed to own any kind of bird. They do proper vaccination, monitor for vaccine failure and give sub-therapeutic antibiotics. Even if the birds are ill and need medication, the antibiotics used may not be used in humans and this eliminate the risk of antibiotic-resistance in humans. But if human antibiotics have to be used, they do discard the eggs. It's a big loss, so they'll always stick to good management to eliminate diseases.