Abstract
In the face of a steady decline in dairy cow fertility over several decades, using hormones to assist reproduction has become common. In the European Union, hormones are prescription-only medicines, giving veterinary practitioners a central role in their deployment. This study explored the clinical and ethical beliefs of practitioners, and provides data on their current prescribing practices. During 2011, 93 practitioners working in England completed a questionnaire (95% response rate). Of the 714 non-organic farms they attended, only 4 farms (0.6%) never used hormones to assist the insemination of lactating dairy cows. Practitioners agreed (>80%) that hormones improve fertility and farm businesses profitability. They also agreed (>80%) that if farmers are able to tackle management issues contributing to poor oestrus expression, then over a five year period these outcomes would both improve, relative to using hormones instead. If management issues are addressed instead of prescribing hormones, practitioners envisaged a less favourable outcome for veterinary practices profitability (p<0.01), but an improvement in genetic selection for fertility (p<0.01) and overall cow welfare (p<0.01). On farms making no efforts to address underlying management problems, long-term routine use at the start of breeding for timing artificial insemination or inducing oestrus was judged “unacceptable” by 69% and 48% of practitioners, respectively. In contrast, practitioners agreed (≥90%) that both these types of use are acceptable, provided a period of time has been allowed to elapse during which the cow is observed for natural oestrus. Issues discussed include: weighing quality versus length of cow life, fiscal factors, legal obligations, and balancing the interests of all stakeholders, including the increasing societal demand for food. This research fosters debate and critical appraisal, contributes to veterinary ethics, and encourages the pro-active development of professional codes of conduct.
Highlights
Post World War II, scientific and technological advances enabled the industrialization and intensification of agriculture
To start to address this gap in the literature this research concerns the use of a reproductive technology, the prescription of synthetic hormones to manage and improve dairy cow fertility
Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted by the first author, and the information gathered was used to inform and design a questionnaire that was subsequently piloted on two veterinary academics, one psychologist and three veterinary practitioners
Summary
Post World War II, scientific and technological advances enabled the industrialization and intensification of agriculture This has generated a multitude of ethical issues concerning the use of technologies in food production and how farm animals ought to be cared for [1,2]. It is perhaps surprizing, that veterinary ethics has only recently emerged as an academic discipline; the paucity of literature and lack of any devoted research journal negates an important subject that presents unique challenges, inherently distinct from medical ethics [3]. Along with all veterinary medicines, are paid for by the farmer
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