Swiss study links farm type to antimicrobial use in cattle, pigs: full analysis
Version 2 — Full analysis
A comparative study based on Swiss national reporting data found that farm type matters when it comes to antimicrobial use, but not in the same direction for every species. Researchers reported that dairy cattle on mixed farms had higher antimicrobial use than cattle on specialized dairy farms, while finisher pigs on mixed farms had lower antimicrobial use than pigs on specialized finisher operations. The paper adds a more nuanced layer to antimicrobial stewardship by suggesting that the same farm environment can create different prescribing patterns depending on the species being managed. (boris-portal.unibe.ch)
The study arrives as Switzerland continues to expand use of its Information System for Antibiotics in Veterinary Medicine, or IS ABV, a national database that has required veterinarians to report antibiotic prescriptions for farm and companion animals since 2019. Those data were first published in 2022 and are now being used for annual reporting, open-data releases, and research on species-level and farm-level antimicrobial use. Swiss authorities and industry groups have also spent years pairing surveillance with prevention programs, including mastitis-focused dairy initiatives and pig health benchmarking efforts aimed at reducing use of critical antibiotics. (anresis.ch)
That broader surveillance framework matters because dairy cattle and pigs already look quite different at baseline in Switzerland. A recent national analysis using IS ABV data across 1,500 farms estimated population-level antimicrobial use at 6.09 defined daily doses per cow per year in dairy cattle, versus 0.74 defined daily doses per finisher pig per year. In dairy cattle, most treatments were administered intramammarily, while in finisher pigs, antimicrobials were mainly prescribed on stock and administered parenterally. Penicillins were the most frequently used class in both sectors. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
The new farm-type comparison fits with earlier Swiss evidence that management conditions strongly influence use. In dairy tiestall farms, researchers previously found antimicrobial use was negatively associated with organic production and larger herd size, and positively associated with some breed patterns and use of hygienic powders in lying areas. In Swiss fattening pig farms, risk factors for higher oral antimicrobial use included mixing pigs from different suppliers within the same pen, handling sick pigs before healthy pigs, and close proximity to neighboring pig farms. Taken together, those findings support the idea that differences between mixed and specialized farms are likely being mediated by day-to-day management, housing, sourcing, workflow, and disease pressure, rather than farm label alone. That last point is an inference from the pattern across studies, rather than a direct finding from one paper. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Direct outside commentary on this specific paper was limited in the sources available, but the surrounding Swiss literature points in a consistent direction. A 2025 study on Swiss dairy farms found that lower antimicrobial use was associated with better overall health and welfare scores, and identified management practices, including feeding waste milk with antimicrobial residues to calves, as associated with use patterns. Swiss livestock management research has also reported that pig farms more often participate in structured herd health programs, while mixed farms sit somewhere between cattle-only and pig-only systems in their use of livestock management services. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the takeaway isn’t simply that mixed farms are better or worse. It’s that stewardship programs may miss important drivers if they benchmark only by species and ignore production context. A dairy veterinarian working with mixed farms may need to look more closely at mastitis control, cow flow, calf management, and labor allocation, while swine veterinarians may find that some mixed-farm practices are inadvertently protective for finisher pigs. The study also reinforces the value of granular prescription reporting systems like IS ABV, which can move stewardship conversations beyond national sales totals and toward farm-level patterns that are more actionable in practice. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
What to watch: The next step will be identifying which farm-level variables explain the divergence between dairy and pig results, and whether Swiss regulators, researchers, and herd health programs use those findings to refine benchmarking, prevention programs, or reporting standards, especially around prescriptions kept on stock. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)