In India major part of cost of rearing in livestock goes to medicines due to faulty farm management practices
This article is important because it is related to veterinary care of farm animals like, buffaloes, cows, sheep and goats
Medicines are not much costly if they use appropriately but treatment is costly almost always
First aid treatment of livestock could reduces many losses in the farms.
You can understand that a new buffalo which could give 1800 liters of milk in next 10 months would give profit of hardly Rs.5000. This profit could wiped out in just 2 treatment of mastitis.
There are many cases like mastitis, lameness, wounds, diarrhea, milk production decline, fever, pruritis, bloat, flu like conditions, and many more, which need immediate intervention to reduce economic losses. However these conditions are not life threatening but reduces production drastically.
So knowing about medicines and their uses is very important for all people either they are livestock keepers or thinking for starting new enterprise.
When you look at the veterinary medicine counter you may be confused to recognize large number of medicine on counter. There might be more than 100 brands for the same drug.
In India drug regulations are not very strict and many drugs could be available in the name of feed supplements
For drug manufacturing, one should need license which is difficult to procure but for marketing it is easy to get
That’s why most people believe in marketing and launch their brands, which are crowded on veterinary counter shelves
However, to remain in market and to survive competition, many of these products have to work on lower margins
Dealers want to sale only those products which have high margins to increase profits, in such scenario when number of products are infinite and hundreds of companies are there, then end consumers are bound to confuse between medicines.
Now in this series of articles we would see the broad classification of drugs and their general use
These articles are just for knowledge and in no way encourage or promote anyone to use these drugs without guidance of professional veterinarian.
However nutritional products and feed supplements could be used by livestock farmers on their own.
There are broadly 4 subjects in veterinary science which are needed to study to understand the use of any medicine – Pathology, Microbiology, Pharmacology and Medicine
Epidemiology is also a very important science when it comes to disease at population level. It means when large number of animals in a farm get disease and shows similar signs and symptoms.
In these articles we only see medicines and their brands, its up to you which brand you would use. Its always better to use high quality company’s product.
There are hardly 15 types of therapeutic drugs available in the market for veterinary purpose
Some of these drugs work against disease causing pathogens and rest works on body system either to modulate its immune system or to suppress body reactions against pathogens. Body reactions are very harmful which usually causes death in animals.
The types of therapeutics drugs are which are mainly available as injections and some orals Antibiotics, Antiprotozoals, Anthelmentics, Anti-inflammatory(NSAIDS), Tranquilizers & Sedatives, Anesthetics, Antihistaminics, Corticosteroids, Hormones, Phosphrus (energetics), Vitamin injections, Antiseptic & Antimaggot, Infusions, Antibloat, insecticides & acaricides,
ANTIVIRALS, ANTIFUNGAL AND ANTINEOPLASTICS (SOME OTHER CLASSES ALSO) ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR VETERINARY USE however some human medicine are used in pet animals,
FEED SUPPLEMENTS like mineral mixture, vitamin mixture, ruminitorics, probiotics, variety of herbal products, heat inducing products, calcium supplements, enzymes, and other products. Classification of these supplements are not very rigid and many local marketing companies comes with their product with confusing names.
