An original system for the continuous monitoring of antimicrobial use in poultry production in France.

Data collection at the flock level on a continuous basis, for antimicrobial use surveillance purposes, provides a complex challenge. Using existing on-farm records, produced as part of the regulations for meat inspection, a sampling scheme was implemented to collect on a simple, representative and continuous basis, the forms providing history of antimicrobial consumption of poultry flocks slaughtered in Brittany. Relational database-stored information provided by the forms includes treatment purpose, antimicrobial drug administered, age at treatment and treatment duration. The aim of this study was to collect information describing antimicrobial drug use quantitatively and qualitatively, by computing the frequency of antimicrobial use according to species, therapeutic class, treatment purpose, duration, and animal age at treatment. A study was carried out to check the validity of farmers' declarations. Examples of data and results are presented such as the relative importance of the different antimicrobial classes in relation to the live weight treated, which shows that beta-lactams and tetracyclines are the main classes used in broilers and turkeys respectively. Average bird weight at treatment was 0.5 kg for a broiler and 3 kg for a turkey. Nevertheless, several 'at-risk' periods could be identified. Initial results after 1 year of data collection showed that this surveillance system provides valid, detailed and useful data about antimicrobial drug use in poultry production at a low cost and with only a moderate time involvement.