In this work, antimicrobial usage data from 2,546 commercial broiler chicken flocks originating from 37 farms are presented. AMU data at the flock level were based on mandatory documentation of antibiotic treatments in livestock in Germany, collected retrospectively for the time period of 2013 – 2018. The dataencompasses all antimicrobial treatments during the fattening period of each flock, starting with the placement of day-old chicks at the barn. The aim of this analysis was to investigate antibiotic usage patterns in broiler chicken flocks in Germany, temporal trends in treatment frequency, the proportions of different antimicrobial classes and the weights of the broiler chickens at the time of treatment. The median treatment frequency over all flocks was six, and veterinary medicinal products belonging to nine different antimicrobial classes were used. Overall, the largest percentage of treatments involved the usage of aminoglycosides (25.6%) and lincosamides (25.6%), followed by polypeptides (21.4%) and beta-lactams (16.2%). Over the six years evaluated, a considerable increase in the relative usage of lincosamides and aminoglycosides was observed. Compared to the first year of data collection, the percentage of treatments with fluoroquinolones, macrolides and polypeptides decreased in consecutive years. The median age of the broiler chickens at the time of treatment was five days, which corresponded to a median body weight at the time of treatment of 111 g, with substantial differences among various antimicrobial classes. We showed that in Germany, the median weight of broiler chickens at the time of treatment was substantially lower than the standard weight of broilers of 1,000 g proposed by the ESVAC. The median weight at treatment is very much influenced by the frequency of age-specific diseases. As different antimicrobial classes are used to combat these diseases, variations in the weight at treatment may have a considerable impact on the estimated treatment indicators. Additionally, a decrease in the relative usage of the highest-priority critically important antimicrobials, such as fluoroquinolones, macrolides and polypeptides, was shown, which might be the consequence of increasing awareness of the antibiotic resistance situation as well as of antibiotic monitoring and benchmarking systems currently running in Germany.

中文翻译：

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德国肉鸡鸡群的抗生素使用模式

在这项工作中，提供了来自37个农场的2,546头商业肉鸡鸡群的抗菌素使用数据。羊群水平的AMU数据是基于2013年至2018年期间德国强制性的家畜抗生素治疗文献记录而得出的。该数据涵盖了每只羊群育肥期间的所有抗菌药物治疗，从放置日粮开始。谷仓里的老小鸡。该分析的目的是调查德国肉鸡群中抗生素的使用模式，治疗频率的时间趋势，不同抗菌剂类别的比例以及治疗时肉鸡的体重。所有鸡群的中位治疗频率为六，使用了属于9种不同抗菌素类的兽药。总体而言，最大百分比的治疗涉及使用氨基糖苷类药物（25.6％）和林可酰胺（25.6％），其次是多肽（21.4％）和β-内酰胺类（16.2％）。在评估的六年中，观察到林可酰胺和氨基糖苷的相对使用量显着增加。与数据收集的第一年相比，氟喹诺酮类，大环内酯类和多肽治疗的百分比连续几年下降。治疗时肉鸡的中位年龄为五天，对应于治疗时中位体重的111 g，不同抗菌剂类别之间存在显着差异。我们证明在德国，处理时，肉鸡的中位体重大大低于ESVAC提出的1000克肉鸡的标准体重。治疗时的体重中位数在很大程度上受特定年龄疾病的频率影响。由于使用了不同的抗菌剂来对抗这些疾病，因此治疗时体重的变化可能会对估计的治疗指标产生重大影响。此外，还显示出最优先的至关重要的抗微生物药物（如氟喹诺酮类，大环内酯类和多肽类）的相对使用量减少了，这可能是由于人们对抗生素耐药性状况以及抗生素监测和基准系统的认识提高了目前在德国运行。