What are antibiotics?
The term antibiotics means “against life”; in
this case, against microbes. Antibiotics are
types of medicines that will search out and
destroy bacteria. They are often used to fight
infectious diseases. Penicillin was the first
antibiotic to be discovered and was made
from mould!
Have you ever taken an antibiotic? If you
did, it means you visited your doctor to get
a prescription for the antibiotic. You took the
medicine and it made you get well.
Farmers and ranchers use antibiotics to help
their livestock get well when microbes make
their animals sick. The doctor the farmer calls
to get a prescription is called a veterinarian.
By working closely with their veterinarian, pig
farmers can make sure their pigs stay healthy.
Pig farmers use antibiotics:
• to treat illness when a pig is sick,
• to control the spread of an illness in
neighboring pigs, and
• to prevent illness when pigs are likely to
become ill.
Antibiotics work very
well against bacteria,
but they don’t work
against viruses. The
common cold is
caused by a virus,
antibiotics won’t help
make you well from
the cold.
The Colorado Reader publication and Ag in the Classroom are projects of the Colorado Foundation for Agriculture.
Educational projects are produced in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Agriculture, other state and federal
agencies, Colorado commodity groups, Colorado agricultural associations, state universities and colleges and interested
individuals. Colorado Readers are provided free to educators requesting them. For more information contact: Bette
Blinde, Colorado Foundation for Agriculture, P.O. Box 10, Livermore, CO 80536 or phone 970 881.2902. Financial support
for this reader has been provided by: Colorado Pork Producers and National Pork Producers Association.
Colorado Ag in the Classroom
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