Responsible antibiotic use in livestock farming protects both animal welfare and the effectiveness of antibiotics that humans depend on, requiring careful stewardship at farm level.
Antibiotic stewardship in farming involves a genuine welfare tension: responsible restriction of antibiotics means some individual animals with treatable infections may receive less antibiotic treatment. But the alternative — maintaining antibiotic dependency — creates both welfare and public health problems over time. The welfare solution is to address the underlying conditions that make antibiotics necessary: improve housing, enrich environments, reduce stocking densities, implement effective vaccination programmes. This improves animal health outcomes while reducing antibiotic need — creating a virtuous cycle where welfare improvement and stewardship reinforce each other.