About withholding periods for vet medicines
A withholding period is the minimum amount of time needed between giving the last dose of a veterinary medicine to an animal and when it is slaughtered, or its products are harvested for food. The withholding period makes sure residues from the medicine won't pose a health risk to consumers or risks to trade.
Veterinary medicines registered for use in or on food-producing animals will have withholding period advice printed on the label. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) sets withholding periods for each species for which the veterinary medicine is approved based on residues data provided during registration. These withholding periods make sure that residues from each approved use stated on the label will not exceed the established maximum residue levels (MRLs) for the active ingredients.
Default withholding periods for veterinary medicines
There will be cases where there is no residues data available for MPI to set a withholding period for a particular use of a veterinary medicine. This is usually in situations where the medicine is being used "off label" (in a different species or in a different way than approved), or if more than one medicine is being used at the same time. There are also cases where there is a need for a withholding period to apply to a registration but there is no residue data available.
The default withholding periods listed on this page can be applied to manage residues in these cases. These conservative withholding periods are based on evaluating all available residues data to find the timepoint that would cover the most common use situations for short-acting veterinary medicines.
The default withholding periods do not apply to sustained release formulations such as long-acting injections and controlled-release ruminal boluses. This is because these types of veterinary medicines are specifically designed to extend the absorption of the medicine and so the residue profile will not fit within the default withholding periods.
Birds, including chickens
Meat: 63 days
Eggs: 10 days
Ruminants, including cattle, deer, goats, and sheep
Meat: 91 days
Milk: 35 days
Camelids, including llama, alpaca
Meat: 63 days
Lagomorpha, including hares, rabbits
Meat: 63 days
Monogastrics, including pigs, horses
Meat: 63 days
Fish and shellfish, including crustaceans, molluscs
Meat: 35 days
