Treatment records

Definition

A treatment record is the written (paper or electronic) record of every drug given to an animal. It is the evidence that the farm followed its veterinarian’s protocols and respected withdrawal times. Industry programs (the National Dairy FARM Program, processor and cooperative programs) require them, regulators use them to trace a residue violation, and they are the backbone of the farm’s residue-avoidance program.

FARM Animal Care v5 (evaluation preparation guide, July 2024) says a treatment record should include, for each treatment:

Date of treatment (add the time when the milk withdrawal is given in hours).
Treated animal identification: official or herd ID; group ID for group treatments.
Name of treatment (product name).
Disease or condition being treated.
Dosage administered and route of administration.
Duration of treatment: number of doses in the course.
Milk and meat withdrawal times; writing them as end dates avoids counting errors.

Good practice adds the person who gave the treatment (listed in the FARM drug residue prevention manual) and, for injectables, the injection site; neither appears in the FARM v5 list above.

Records kept alongside:

Written treatment protocols from the veterinarian, under a valid VCPR.
ELDU orders: the vet’s prescription or label for any extra-label use, including the extended withdrawal.
VFD orders for medicated feed fed under a veterinary feed directive.
Drug inventory: what is on hand, with lot numbers and expiry dates (some programs).

How to pull it in DC305

DC305 often holds a copy of treatment records as health and treatment events (mastitis, metritis, lameness, pneumonia, etc.), with the drug, protocol or quarter in the remark. Pull a date window with EVENTS:

EVENTS <treatment events> ID PEN LACT DIM FOR EDAY>-30
EVENTS\B <treatment events> ID PEN LACT DIM FOR EDAY>-30    including animals sold or dead since

EVENTS lists live animals only by default; an audit of treatments usually needs \B so animals that have since left are kept.

See DC305 events for syntax. Event names and remark codes vary by herd: look them up in the herd’s private dc305-vocab mapping.

What DC305 often does not hold reliably:

the person who gave the treatment (some herds use a technician field or a remark code),
dose, route and injection site,
group treatments, and treatments of calves raised off-site.

Many herds treat a paper treatment book, a treatment board or a separate app as the authoritative record. Confirm which system is authoritative before using DC305 for an audit.

Typical range

Herd context: US dairies; FARM Animal Care v5 and federal requirements as of 2026.

Coverage: 100% of treatments recorded, including calves and heifers.
Timeliness: recorded at the time of treatment, not at the end of the shift or week.
Retention: the producer (client), the veterinarian and the distributor must each keep a copy of every VFD for 2 years (21 CFR 558.6(a)(4)). Veterinarians must keep ELDU records for 2 years, or longer if federal or state law requires (21 CFR 530.5(b)). FARM expects treatment records to be kept for a set period (commonly at least 2 years). Some states, processors or buyers require longer.

Requirements change; confirm the current version with the program or regulator. This page is not legal or veterinary advice.

Common mistakes

Recording only the first day of a multi-day course, so the withdrawal is counted from the wrong dose.
No withdrawal end date on the record.
Missing the person who treated, so training gaps can’t be traced.
Group and calf treatments not recorded.
Two systems that disagree (paper book vs software), with no rule for which one wins.
Protocols out of date or unsigned, so a record can’t be matched to a current vet instruction.
ELDU recorded without the vet’s order or the extended withdrawal on file.
Free-text remarks that can’t be searched or summarized.