Poultry farmers cautioned on drug overdose of birds

Dr. Joachim Darko, the Director of Veterinary Services Department for the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions has cautioned poultry farmers to administer the right amount of drugs to fowls to breed quality stock for consumers.

He said some poultry farmers deliberately administer an overdose of drugs to their birds to make the birds grow very quick. By so doing they are not following the rules of drug administration and therefore exceeding the right quantity at a time.

“That is a clear case of overdose and a form of drug abuse which usually caused the fowls’ liver to get mashed and end up causing mass killing of the poultry”.

Dr. Darko gave the caution in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Tuesday in Sunyani, explaining that those farmers involved in such negative trend were risking the poultry business, which might lead to the collapse of the industry in future.

He stated that medication should be given to only sick fowls and also the necessary vaccines for disease control and prevention must be done according to the schedule of the veterinary officers.

Dr. Darko stressed the need for poultry farmers to stick to the rules and times of de-worming the birds to reduce the risk of mass death of birds by worms.

He said since most of the poultry diseases were treated with antibiotics, it would be better for farmers to avoid daily administration of such medicines because the birds’ bodies would be resistant to the medicine and therefore make diseases treatment very difficult when the need arises.

Dr. Darko emphasised that the effect of the medication did not only affect the fowls, because ultimately it entered the human food chain.

He reiterated the need for farmers to strictly observe the poultry industry hygiene and environmental best practice and cited that they could use a mixture of detergent-like port zone and water and step in before entering the pen to prevent people from spreading communicable diseases from one farm to the other.

Dr. Darko added that the best way to prevent the spread of poultry diseases was to set up poultry farms three kilometers away from the other because some bacterial could not survive in the air for such a distance.