Ag TALES
Exploring Efficient Cattle Handling and Animal Welfare with Dr. Dave Sjeklocha DVM
Allow me to share something extraordinary: a deep-dive conversation with Dr. Dave Sjeklocha, an accomplished feedlot veterinarian and a true advocate for animal welfare. Ever wonder how a family vacation could inspire a life-long passion? Dave's captivating journey did just that, sparking his love for the industry on a simple trip to Salt Lake City. Tune in as he narrates his career path, from navigating the challenges of education to achieving his dream and becoming an influential figure in the animal welfare and feedlot industry.
What if you could almost guarantee the health and well-being of your cattle, while also saving money? It might sound too good to be true, but it's absolutely possible. In this episode, we delve into improved cattle handling techniques that are both efficient and humane. Dr. Dave and I share our experiences from the field—like how he helped feedlot crews reduce their use of electric prods to a mere two to three percent to even zero at times. Moreover, we explore the merits and potential impacts of using dart guns for treating animals, an effective tool, when used responsibly.
Speaking of responsibility, our conversation wouldn't be complete without addressing the critical role of education. Dr. Dave underlines the importance of education in realizing our dreams, a philosophy that resonates throughout this entire episode. Whether you're passionate about animal welfare, interested in cattle handling, or planning a career in veterinary science, this enlightening conversation with Dr. Dave Sjeklocha is a must-listen. Join us as we connect our shared passion with the larger purpose of benefiting both people and animals.
Allow me to share something extraordinary: a deep-dive conversation with Dr. Dave Sjeklocha, an accomplished feedlot veterinarian and a true advocate for animal welfare. Ever wonder how a family vacation could inspire a life-long passion? Dave's captivating journey did just that, sparking his love for the industry on a simple trip to Salt Lake City. Tune in as he narrates his career path, from navigating the challenges of education to achieving his dream and becoming an influential figure in the animal welfare and feedlot industry.
What if you could almost guarantee the health and well-being of your cattle, while also saving money? It might sound too good to be true, but it's absolutely possible. In this episode, we delve into improved cattle handling techniques that are both efficient and humane. Dr. Dave and I share our experiences from the field—like how he helped feedlot crews reduce their use of electric prods to a mere two to three percent to even zero at times. Moreover, we explore the merits and potential impacts of using dart guns for treating animals, an effective tool, when used responsibly.
Speaking of responsibility, our conversation wouldn't be complete without addressing the critical role of education. Dr. Dave underlines the importance of education in realizing our dreams, a philosophy that resonates throughout this entire episode. Whether you're passionate about animal welfare, interested in cattle handling, or planning a career in veterinary science, this enlightening conversation with Dr. Dave Sjeklocha is a must-listen. Join us as we connect our shared passion with the larger purpose of benefiting both people and animals.
Hi everybody. How are you doing? This is Ethan Gillum, your host on our new podcast called Echoes of the Land Tradition, agriculture, livestock and Expertise. We on this podcast, we are trying to reach out and talk to the folks that have been integral in shaping the ag and livestock industry yesterday and today, from our local experts here in Severe County, utah, to nationally recognized professionals. We're getting their stories, expertise and passions for the education of our listeners. Stay tuned, everybody.
Speaker 1:On this episode we're going to be talking with Dr Dave Siklocha. He's from Merck Animal Health. He's a feedlot veterinarian by trade. He also specializes in animal welfare, animal handling techniques, especially in the feed yard, and training guys on the ground and showing them those techniques that make their operations more efficient and less stressful. The stuff he has to say, guys, is really interesting. It's a money saver and it's a big deal today, not only for the public eye, but also for the success and the, I believe, the prosperity of future outlooks in the ranching world and the livestock and ag industry as a whole. Listen in, guys. This is good. How did you decide that you were going to be a veterinarian and the capacity of the veterinarian that you are now? Is that what you imagined when you thought of the job, dave.
Speaker 2:Siklocha, to answer your second question, not really, but I do enjoy it. I enjoy it thoroughly. But how I decided to become a veterinarian, well, that's going to roll back a long time. Dave Siklocha, that's good, dave Siklocha, back in.
Speaker 2:I was born in Iowa, and when I was about 10 years old my family went on one of the few family vacations that we ever went on.
Speaker 2:My aunt and uncle lived in Salt Lake City and my uncle was doing a medical residency out there in Salt Lake City, and so we went out to visit them and, you know, just hung around with family.
Speaker 2:We did go camping in the mountains, but then on the way back home to Iowa, my dad mentioned something about there was a 100,000 head capacity feed yard that had recently been built in Colorado, owned by the Monfort family, and where we lived in Iowa. My dad's stepdad had a large farming operation, but they also fed a couple thousand, had a cattle, and so at that time the Monfort family had an actual observation tower on the edge of their feed yard so people could just stop by and climb up in the tower and look over the feed yard. And that's kind of when I got hooked on cattle feeding, because I can remember this day climbing up those steps and of course there was a solid wall and a rail around the top of the observation tower and as I walked toward that rail and all those cattle came into view and all those feed trucks going all over and cowboys pushing cattle here and there, and just the managed chaos just really trolled me Right in front of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just amazing to see all those cattle. And that's kind of when I decided I knew I wanted to be involved in cattle feeding and I always kind of wanted to be a veterinarian. I took a little longer getting around to that step than most folks. After I got out of high school I went to college off and on for a year and a half at what was then Northeast Missouri State University, and my heart just wasn't in it. And then so I went to work in a small feed yard in southwest Missouri and road pens and doctored cattle, processed cattle even called feed and fed cattle. But my primary responsibilities were in the animal health side. And while I was there I got married to a woman that probably should have been certified as insane because she number one, she married me and number two. Shortly after we got married I said you know, I really would like to give this vet school thing a try. And she says, okay, let's do it. And so she worked and kept the groceries on the table while I went to school when we started.
Speaker 2:And I went to Kansas State and started in the fall of 1987 and I was six weeks shy on my 25th birthday as I started my undergrad there. So in 25 is a pretty typical age for most veterinarians to be getting out of school, so there was quite a push there for me to relearn how to learn. My study habits were never that great and I really had to put those to pressure, but it all worked out. After three years of undergrad I got accepted to K-State and graduated from the vet school there in 1994. And from then on my goal was always to primarily focus on feed yards, and you know I tell people that's what I went to vet school for was to become a feed yard veterinarian and I practiced in Southwest Nebraska and tried to develop a feed yard consulting practice. It was slow going and then I went to work for actually in management of a feed yard for a large cattle feeding company in Colorado for a few years and then wound up going back to Nebraska to the same practice and buying in to it. And then another opportunity, a better opportunity, as far as feed yard consulting popped up for me. So I sold out of the practice in Nebraska and moved to a little town of Sublet, kansas, and practiced there and from there on just did nearly all feed yard consulting, a little bit of horse work here and there, but it was nearly all feed yard consulting, and that's kind of when I my biggest consulting client asked me to join them on staff. But no, it's been a very rewarding career. You know, it's not very often that when you set out to do something, it turns out almost exactly the way you hoped it would, and my career really has.
Speaker 2:And then in the in 2018, the family that owned that feed yard did a little repositioning and wound up selling off a couple other feed yards, and at that point, I started looking for something else to do, and this mark position came open and, by virtue of the fact that we had done a lot of research for at that feed yard for virtually all the pharmaceutical companies, I noticed that everyone appreciated their employers that from the different pharmaceutical companies, but I, it seemed like the Merck employees complained about their employers the least, and so that was to me that was a good sign, and I knew a few people and Merck have some very good friends. In fact, I've got a class, I've got a school classmate that works for Merck as well, and so it was. It was a good move for us and and the nice thing about it is they. They told me I could kind of live wherever I wanted to, but they wanted me to focus on feed yards.
Speaker 2:And so, by that the time that hit, our two oldest kids had graduated from college and been married and we're starting to have kids, and so we now live within two miles of one set of grandkids and with 10 miles of another set of grandkids. Wow. So we moved from sublet to north up by Topeka, kansas, and so, yeah, that's kind of the the nutshell of it. Merck, when I, when I joined them it was I was trying to figure out what this tech services position was going to be like. Frankly, I'm still kind of trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1:So the official title is a technical services veterinarian right. Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2:And but they're keeping you in your wheelhouse. Yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah. And the things I'm passionate about, you know, animal welfare, you know it's, it's. I've got some great colleagues to work with, my my supervisors are open to almost anything that I would like to do and, and so you know, and one of them is is like this songmanship and stewardship thing.
Speaker 2:I attend most of these, you know, representing Merck, and so, yeah, it's been a lot of fun because I know, while I focus on the, the, the, the focus on on feed yards, I do get to kind of travel all over the U S, yeah, and and I get to get out on farms and ranches. You know, you, you, you visit a farm in in West Virginia and that I'd never gotten to get out on that land and look at the cattle and and ask that, that's, ask that producer why he does the things the way he does, and then I, then I might show up in in Idaho with another on another ranch and and it's just interesting to see all the different ways that and reasons why cattle are managed the way they are in their different environments.
Speaker 2:And you know it makes a lot of sense and it's, you know what, what might work in in Nevada would never work in Georgia, in vice versa, but it it works there, yeah, in in those respective places. But it's, it's really intriguing to get involved or at least be able to see firsthand some of these differences in in production. I think that's probably.
Speaker 1:I like what you said because that's that's one of the interesting things, at least in my opinion, and and what I've learned that there's not a lot of species out there, there's not a lot of animals out there that can adjust to a lot of diversity. You know they're, they're really specific to where they are or where they start out, right and they're whether you want to call it biosphere or wherever they're biomer or just their their home range. But it's interesting to see, you know guys working cows in Washington state and then guys working them in Louisiana and they've got 50 head on on 10 acres, you know, and the grass is up to your waist and in Washington they're putting 50 head on, you know 700 acres, trying to find enough for them. But something else you said that I was, I thought was kind of a I don't know what people call them nowadays like a buzz, a buzz phrase or a buzz word is how you said.
Speaker 1:You know you're, you're a feedlot guy, a feeding guy, which is really unique because you also talk about and I hope you can maybe we can get you to expand just a little bit on why you talk about animal welfare, because I don't think a lot of people associate feed yard guys with animal welfare. They don't like to anyway, but they don't want to admit that they exist. So you're in the public side, you're kind of a rarity. So what is it about welfare that turns your gears?
Speaker 2:Well, of course, remember, I love beef, I love the beef industry and I want to see it succeed. And I understand that there are some people that are concerned about how cattle are cared for in feedlots and I like a good case stator. I'm a big fan of Bill Snyder and one of his mantras that he preached to all his players is that do a little bit better today than you did yesterday, and that's kind of. I've adopted that mantra myself and you know it's not unique to Coach Snyder. I just like to give him credit for it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but so that's that's kind of what got me into it. I've kind of and this is going to sound like I'm tooting my own horn but I've kind of always had a knack for just for animal handling and I can see ways that we can do things better. I see things that we are doing and if I don't like them I try to change them, and so that's what kind of what got me going in the animal welfare direction. You know some of the things. Like if we look at where I was primarily practicing there in Kansas, it's a fairly dry area and that's the reason a lot of cattle are fed there is because we don't have to deal with with mud as a rule, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think by virtue of the fact that we have that dry area, we kind of gotten away from bedding cattle and we figure that, okay, the soil's dry, the pen's dry, and and so they got a dry place to lay down, let's not worry about bedding. But it's pretty amazing, and that's one of the first things I noticed was when we put bedding out, those calves that were laying on that dry dirt would get up and come over and lay in that bedding. And another thing when this is when I was in in in Colorado, we had a processing crew and a custom processing crew that worked at that yard and they were a good processing crew but they had several electric prods and actually the feed yard owned the prods and they had the long wands on them and they were always breaking the wands and they were always running out of of batteries. And so I was kind of in charge of of making getting cattle to that crew and everything and and arranging getting all the vaccines up there that they needed to administer and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:And one day they told me, doc, we gotta, we need, we need a couple of new wands for the electric prods and we're out of batteries. And so I ran into the health store not really thinking anything of it, and, as it turns out, the animal health store had just one foot long wands. That's all they had. They were out of the the longer wands and so they needed them. So I bought them and I brought them out there, and the crew wasn't very happy, I feel like.
Speaker 1:I know where this is going, yeah.
Speaker 2:And. But I said, well, it's what you've got to deal with. And so what we found out there was that, of course, the shorter wand was harder to break. They weren't sticking it in places that didn't need to go, and the other thing was they had to get close to the cattle to to move them. And so not only did we quit breaking wands, but our battery, our electric prod battery bill just dropped through the floor and they just weren't using the electric prods as much because they had to actually move to the cattle, and as they got close to the cattle, the cattle wouldn't move without them.
Speaker 2:And so that really struck a chord with me and that's really what put me on the road to looking at things that we can do better as far as animal welfare is concerned. And then when I joined I'll just say the name, the the went on staff with that, with our largest cattle feeding client. It's a cattle empire. When I joined them, that was one of their focuses too. They knew I had an interest in animal welfare and they wanted their crews to be focused on animal welfare, and so that was that was part of my major responsibilities was getting everybody up to snuff on cattle handling and that sort of thing, and it took.
Speaker 2:It took a little bit of convincing to get these guys in, and one of the first things we did was we utilized the national BQA welfare assessment, not an audit. It was an assessment at that time To see where they were at, yeah, and, and part of it was that. You know, part of the assessment besides cattle handling or besides the other things you saw in the yard, was cattle handling, and so we'd watch them put a hundred head cattle through the chute and you'd record how many times they did use an electric prod, how many, how many times the cattle vocalized how many of them jumped out of the squeeze chute those sorts of things Ran out of the chute, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, yeah, and and of course, those are all indicators of of stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that assessment basically said you needed to use an electric prod on less than 10% of the cattle. And when I told our crews that that was going to be their, their benchmark, it's interesting because they really didn't think they could possibly work cattle in that way and do it without. Without maybe they were going to exceed it by a long ways, or or they weren't going to get any getting a cattle to be processed, and so we had three different processing barns, three different processing crews. First time we did it. They came close, but none of them essentially passed the assessment. They thought they were struggling.
Speaker 2:After they didn't pass it, then I started working one-on-one with each of the workers as much as I could and showing them better cattle handling techniques. Then the second time, just a week or so later, they passed it with flying colors. We did that assessment monthly for six or eight months and then we started going quarterly. The crews took it as a challenge. When they figured out that they could work cattle without overusing the electric prod, then it became easier for them because they enjoyed their work more.
Speaker 1:Everyone is stressed about it, angry about it, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Anger is a big thing. Yeah, so two or three percent was tops, is all they'd used electric prod on. It got to where I would go assess crews on a quarterly basis and we might go three or four assessments and not one of the crews would use the electric prod even once. Yeah, they got that good at it. There were some changes to the facilities we made to try to make it better. We had in credit cattle empire in the Brown family for spending the money. We got away from the circular sweeps and the snakes and we went to Bud boxes with open sides. I like that. Yeah, I had nothing against the circular sweeps and the curve valley ways.
Speaker 1:But if you get a guy who knows how to use a box. Absolutely, it's quick.
Speaker 2:There's some training there. As I end, temple Grandin has said this herself. When she designed those, her initial goal was to and this isn't her words, but she basically wanted to make them idiot proof that anybody can work cattle through them and that's just not possible. Yeah, and she knows that. She said that. But with the Bud box it does require a little thinking, a little bit of manipulation.
Speaker 2:A little bit of step, yeah, and the guys, those crews, picked up on that so quick. Once they understood the principle of it, they picked up on it really quick and the cattle were calmer, and that's another thing. When I first started working with them and before we started redesigning our facilities, I was working with one particular crew and instead of filling up the tub which is a big mistake, everybody wants to fill that tub up and use it as a holding pen. I just started having them bring in just six or eight at a time and go right into the alleyway and then the sweep gate. The only time it stopped is when it was open. So when you started pushing it shut, as soon as the last calf went into the alleyway you opened it back up and got a few more. It meant a little more walking, but when we got done with that pen of cattle, the implanter came and thanked me for training, for working with that crew.
Speaker 1:I'm getting myself beat up all the time.
Speaker 2:It made his job so much easier. They come in hot into the shoe. Absolutely, we're throwing their heads around and that sort of thing. So now it's, and when you see those kind of changes, differences, improvements that can be made, it makes your job worthwhile. Oh yeah, it feels like you've accomplished something.
Speaker 1:Well, that's large scale. Impact on that too, because in college when I did animal science.
Speaker 1:I thought my reproduction class and anatomy class. I really enjoyed them and I thought they were going to be the most fun. But probably the most fun class I had is I took animal handling and behavior at BYU, idaho, and that was I remember calling my friends, calling my parents and saying you won't believe we loaded bulls on a trailer, yearling bulls, and they stayed there with the door open and learning how to work a butt box. And probably the most significant thing that I learned was I came away from working cows clean and I wasn't tired and I wasn't angry.
Speaker 1:And I remember the professor used to say the first word out of almost every cattle guy's mouth when something goes wrong is dumb cow. He says do you really think it's the cow's fault? I mean, you spend more time training the people but once they get it, the cows even like today out there, having seen it done before, you'd notice that man, all the cows get up to the gate and then all of them leave, and then one stays behind and they leave and then all of a sudden there's four standing. Well, only a couple of them leave. They learn a lot quicker than we do where the pressure is, and so I've always thought that's really an impressive thing to realize, but it's probably the hardest thing to do is implement it with the guys that actually have to do it on the ground.
Speaker 2:I would agree, and you mentioned that dumb cow thing and I've got a talk I've actually given it here at some of these stockmanship and stewardship before and it's what I call common cattle handling mistakes and it's just a list of silly things that we do and we don't really even think about them. But I always finish up that talk saying that most of our problems with cattle handling are not due to stupid cattle and I stop right there, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then people figure out the rest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's true, and I think I would say probably the number one reason behind that is that we've all been trained and I like to think of myself as, I guess, a progressive cattle guy, and my dad as well but I think we were all trained in that Hurry up, get this job done, let's go before the sun's down and that translated into a lot of sitting behind all the cows, pushing them and prodding them, and I remember my professor used to say you could make this to where you could just sit on your horse and eat a sandwich.
Speaker 1:The cows will start doing it if you'll let them learn. And that initial patience because the breed of people that we are just don't naturally come by a lot of patience and going off what you said. I think there's a lot of research that we've done in different fields as far as things that translate into dollar bills, like heat stress, dollar bills loss or feeds, tons of feeds but cattle handling translates into dollar bills just as much, absolutely, as anything else. Is there anything that you've seen that specifically on the production side, where you can say it would be hard for me to put some really good scientific data behind it.
Speaker 2:But when it comes to cattle handling and you've got a crew that understands how to do it, with a minimal amount of stress, with a minimal amount of electric prodding and that sort of thing, and the cattle exit the chute at a walker, at the most to trot, and then they break into a walk. As that became more and more of a norm for us, we could see, I felt like I could see the health of the cattle improve. And the other end of it is especially when you're, for instance, you get in some light calves and they might get a couple implants while they're at the feed yard where they need to get run through the chute again. If you handle and write that first time, that second time through the chute, it's going to be so much easier. And so and the vice versa is true as well If you mess it up the first time, it gets harder. So yeah, as far as the true dollars and cents, I can't put a dollar figure on it, but I guess the dollar figure is. It's just the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:It is the right thing to do and I agree with you when you talk about some of the costs, especially ranchers. But feed yard guys and dairy guys go through there's more costs than just feeding cows, even though that's the biggest cost broken equipment you go easy on your equipment. You go easy on your crew. You're not sending guys to the hospital. You're not buying a new chute or buying new panels. What are those things add up?
Speaker 2:And that's another thing is the more we stressed good animal welfare, good cattle handling, et cetera, the our employee turnover rate dropped. Yeah, they like their job, yeah, they enjoyed it and they stayed on and they were just happy they were just happier workers Instead of thinking that they had to get so many cattle.
Speaker 1:Best of me a day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were stressed, and that's another thing. After we kind of got everybody schooled and trained and they accepted it and put it to work. And then I put a lot of effort into it, but so did they. They put a lot of effort into learning. But there was one time a client customer came by. A feeding customer came by and he wanted to see this bud box system work, because at that time it was still a fairly novel idea. So we went in and he watched us work those cattle and of course we'd taken the hydraulic pump off the chute and put it outside so it was quiet in there.
Speaker 2:The guys weren't yelling at the cattle. That's another thing that I stress. You don't yell. There were no stock whips People. They carried flags or paddle and I'm not even a big fan of the paddle, but the electric prod was there but it was hung on a hook and the cattle were going through and the workers could have a conversation, like you and I were having, and while we were working cattle and they weren't having to yell at each other and the customer that was there to watch it, he said this is really nice, but he says I've got to work cattle faster than this. And I said well, how fast do you think you've got to work cattle? And he says, well, I got to at least do 120 head an hour. And I said you start counting. And we were working them at 150 head an hour. It was just that quiet. And just the fact that we were quiet and the guys were calm and the cattle were calm, he didn't think there was any way we were working cattle quickly. They were going fast.
Speaker 1:Guys don't realize how much time gets wasted and beaten from behind. We're yelling at your guys. Or then you get bad relationships on your feed lots where guys don't like the boss because he's making them. There's a lot that gets blamed on the cow and it's just not that way, getting first off the owner to accept it and then the other guys just say, ok, we're going to work at this Because it does take work. I mean sometimes, especially when you're working a bed box, or if you get into a little bit of open area and you're taking too quick of a step or one step too many or something, and that's frustrating itself, but man, it's gratifying once you get there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and to me it's fun. I mean, if I could sit there, I could have fun all day putting cattle through a bud box into the alleyway, just I would enjoy doing that. Just get flow cattle, yep, yep, and just figuring out what the moves I need to make, the pressure I need to put on them, and that sort of thing I could enjoy doing that all day long.
Speaker 1:You know, I think probably one of the invitations I would extend some of the because I've thought this. After I took that class I thought, you know, no one's going to want to do this, no one's going to want to take this time, and it's really not that much. That's the first thing. It's not that much time.
Speaker 1:It's just effort and if you put that much effort into cussing out a cow, you can learn something you know. But anyone that thinks that a cow, I guess and correct me if I'm wrong, but as you repeat this, especially with your same herd throughout the year, you start training your herd, you start training your feedlot, the cows start to learn it, and I think some people don't think that's possible and I guess the invitation I always thought was we ought to just invite them to a dairy Because you think cows can't be trained Absolutely. Those cows don't hardly get touched.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, and I look back on my, when I was growing up, we, our family, we AI'd our cow herd and we'd they were out on pasture and it is a beef herd and we raised horses. So we'd saddle our horses every night and go out, gather the cows, bring them in heat detect for an hour and then let them out, and then we do same thing in the morning. Mm-hmm, and after three, four days of that, those cows that see us come out of a barn with our horses and they just pick up and start walking, Stop coming in. Yeah, and you're exactly right. You know. I mentioned that.
Speaker 2:Common cattle handling mistakes that I talk that I like to give.
Speaker 2:One of them is what I call the sifter and that's the guy that he needs five-headed cattle to go into the alleyway but he brings 30 because he's just going to let 25 of them slip by and he hopes he has five left to get into the alleyway when he gets up there and what happens there is those cattle learn that they can't escape.
Speaker 2:They messes up the others Absolutely and by the time he gets done, working the group of cattle and this is especially bad in a cow herd, like you mentioned whether year after year those cows get sifted. You know they've escaped so many times that when they get to the last 20, 30, maybe even 40 head, they get on the fight, because I got away last time and now I've got to get in there and cattle start jumping fences, People start getting hurt. That sort of thing occurs when but you've trained them to do that. And the bad part about it is when you tell that sifter that he needs to run the branding iron and you put someone else back there. That's a good cattle handler. He's got to retrain that herd and it's going to take a while.
Speaker 1:And pretty good chance he might get here. I can't tell you how many times I've been out there, you know, like when we would preg check for different ranchers and a cow would come through and you know, like a six or eight year old cow and he goes, oh, this old rank thing. And you know they developed that little relationship over the years. They know, and it's just funny hearing you say that because they know that cow and that cow knows them. You know, and so I guess you know we tend to not think of cows as intelligent beings, but really they will learn what to do and what not to do. But they'll also learn at the same time what's easy. You know, and if we make, like they said today, if we make the easy things or whatever the but we need them to do easy, then a lot more can be accomplished.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's impressive. So I guess, then, my other question is do you do you like where you're at now? Are you happy at this stage? Is there more that you're waiting to do, or do you feel like you've hit the groove?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I'm enjoying the opportunities I've got. You know, I'm 60 years old, but I, I still want to be effective, and so do I feel like I'm done. No, I still want to. I still want to just like, just like. I'm just like. I'm just like. I'm just like my favorite football coach, bill Snyder. I still want to get a little better, a bit better every day.
Speaker 1:So do you so kind of leading into this question then is what's the what's your thing right now? I mean, I know, I know the animal handling, the animal welfare thing. Is there anything in specific where you're putting a lot of effort into right now?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I really want to continue working in the animal welfare front and you know, and I'm pretty passionate about antimicrobial stewardship and food safety. Those are probably my three main passions and you know, one of the one of the concerns I have, speaking frankly, is is the the what appears to be a fairly widespread use of darts, and I I understand the animal welfare aspect of that, because if the calf's lame and and he needs an antibiotic and you don't have facilities close and you don't want to drive him a mile, on a lame foot.
Speaker 2:I get that, but I don't think it should be the primary.
Speaker 1:The go to yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the immediate thing and I think there's some some of my concerns there also has to do with with antimicrobial stewardship or antibiotic stewardship. Those darts can only hold so much volume, and so I'm fairly convinced that a lot of us are making our antibiotic decisions not on what might be the best treatment for that animal, but what will fit in that dart. That's a good point. I haven't thought about that yet, and so that that's a that's a concern I have. But by the same token, the, the dart gun, is, is a handy tool. It really is.
Speaker 2:I just and and the other concern, that is, I was around when BQA was first being developed and I grew up giving injections in the hip of cows and in the hip of calves, and because that's where you did it, yeah, that's where you did it. And one of my concerns with the, with the darts, is that we're not going to be, we're going to start finding more injection site lesions left over from from dark guns, yep, yep, cause we don't hit in the right place, either accidentally or on purpose, because that, that hind quarter is a pretty big target and it's pretty convenient. And, and so I'm, I'm afraid that's. My fear is that we'll start seeing more injection site lesions at slaughter from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which translates into some not good I mean just like you're saying lesions that people are seeing at the slaughterhouse and that's lost money and and, frankly, doesn't look good in the public side.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um so, uh, is that, is that more of a problem? Just lack of facilities, where you see guys using those a lot, or just I don't? I don't want to call people lazy, I don't, right. Is it a thing where it's like, well, this is just easier, right?
Speaker 2:In some instances I think it is just easier Um the uh. But you know you get out here in this country where we're at, where it's big open range and and uh, uh, you know it's going to take an effort. Um, of course, here you're probably going to be a little more apt to find uh cowboys that can rope the calf and treat it properly, or I guess I should say treat it with a syringe as opposed to a dart. You get further east there's there's some good cowboys there, but there are fewer and farther between and uh, and I'm afraid that's where a lot of it is is occurring. Um, you just can't find the people to uh, to uh that can go out and rope a calf or, for that matter, even uh guide a calf in, use a horse and guide a calf into a facility to capture him and and treat him the traditional way.
Speaker 1:I guess I should say Hmm. Yeah, that would be. That would be interesting because, honestly, that's the I know. I know the guys have been using dart guns, but I'd never had thought about that, especially like the dosage concern. Um, I mean, I don't know anything about what the darts, who makes the darts or anything like that, but I wouldn't assume there's a wide variety of darts available to everybody.
Speaker 2:I think it was about three companies that that make them Um. One of them is, uh, is is more popular than the other two, I'd say. But you know, um, um, when I was with with cattle empire, we, uh, we were notified that by the packer that there was a dart in one of our carcasses.
Speaker 1:Oh, it went all the way into the skin under the skin.
Speaker 2:And uh, um, and so we didn't use darts. And so the customer that owned that heifer, I called him up and I said are you using darts down there? He said no, I don't use darts, I don't want to allow him on the place. And of course he Purchased this group of heifers and then grazed him on his ranch for a couple months before he sent him to the feed yard, and so that dart had been in that heifer from the time she was a baby calf.
Speaker 2:Oh, my word and and so you know, and that it's metal. Yeah and so that's a daldorated meat, yep, and so, and and you talk to the packing plant. Guys, and if you go into a packing plant and talk to the shift manager or something, and a Lot of times you say, hey, what's it?
Speaker 2:Are you having finding any darts in? And the one time I did it the guy pulled his desk drawer open there seven or eight darts, oh my gosh, that he'd found. And so it's it's. It's not, I guess, a huge epidemic yet, but it is. I think it's a, I think it could be a potential problem. The main thing you got to do if you're gonna use that equipment is, if you shoot a dart, you got to find the Dirt, find the dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hate saying people need to be educated because people want to be educated, but you know, having having a tool like this available where someone can hear someone's story and you know there are there are those things. I think back to what you said at the beginning of have you climbing up that tower and seeing all those cattle? You know I remember as myself as a kid, going out, you know, in Little League and in the morning, seeing a baseball field, and that was, that was my dream. You know that was, and it stuck with me to this day. I can still think about it. So, living out your passion, I mean, you can't ask for anything more than a human life yeah, so it's been really good to have you here and you know you're an excellent resource, not only for Merck but for for other people, and I Appreciate your time. I really do.
Speaker 2:Yep, I Glad to do it, and I'll just finish by saying and repeating Bill Snyder, do a little bit better today than you did yesterday. Absolutely, absolutely Well, thank you. You bet, you bet, you bet.