The relationship between antibiotic use in livestock and antimicrobial resistance has both public health and animal welfare dimensions, as resistant infections cause greater suffering and mortality in animals themselves.
Antibiotic resistance has a direct and underappreciated animal welfare dimension. When bacteria evolve resistance, infections that would previously have been rapidly cleared become chronic and difficult to treat, causing prolonged suffering and higher mortality in affected animals. Intensive farming systems that rely on antibiotics to compensate for poor welfare conditions — overcrowding, poor ventilation, stress — create the conditions for resistance evolution. Reducing antibiotic dependency in livestock therefore has dual benefits: slowing resistance evolution in bacteria that affect both animals and humans, and improving the baseline welfare conditions that make antibiotics necessary in the first place. The transition to lower-antibiotic farming requires genuine welfare investment — better housing, lower stocking density, improved biosecurity — rather than simply removing antibiotic access.