Drugs approved for small ruminants

F or the purpose of this FARAD Digest, small rumi- nants are considered to include sheep, goats, deer, and camelids.In the United States, the small ruminant population is low, and they are all considered minor species under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (Table 1).Minor species are defined by exclusion from major species (ie, cats, dogs, horses, swine, cattle, chickens, and turkeys).In the United States, sheep were only considered to be minor species in regard to efficacy and target animal safety requirements and remained a major species when human food safety was being evaluated.This exception was attributed to the high consumption of lamb and mutton at the time of the original classification in 1983.It was not until August 2002 4 that the sheep drug approval process was amended so that sheep were reclassified as a minor species with regard to human food safety requirements.