Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The northwestern counties of Alabama are suffering from a severe lack of veterinarians that provide services for food producing species. There are many beef cattle herds that have not had proper access to veterinary care in this area. It is difficult to mostly serve livestock species instead of small animals and provide adequate care for the entire area without adequate affordable resources. We have also had many safety concerns handling livestock in this area, as many producers do not have safe handling facilities or even a simple head catch in order to "work" their herd or treat individual cows. This results in having to stress the animal by roping them, putting everyone in danger trying to corral them in an unsafe fencing system, or even worse, not being able to treat the animal at all. These situations are particularly frightening because diseases may go undiagnosed and affect the rest of the herd. This makes our cattle "high risk." We have been striving to remedy this health and production problem in the Northwest Alabama beef herd, but we have limited resources to help several of these producers. We are not as efficient and able to reach as many producers as we would like with the resources we currently have.We intend to purchase a new ambulatory veterinary truck, veterinary box insert, and a portable working facillity in order to treat sick animals as well as perform safe, efficient handling of larger herds. By doing so, we intend to better the health of individual beef cattle in our service area as well as the NW Alabama beef herd at large. This will allow for a safer, healthier product for consumers. We will obtain data for each time our services are used for beef cattle in this area, and we will communicate our increased services to local Cattlemen's Associations and Co-ops as well as call our current beef cattle clients. We intend to vaccinate, deworm, and pregnancy check as many herds as possible, and this grant will help us to achieve this goal in a safer, more efficient fashion. If we can put cows through the working facility faster, we can go see more clients every day and help more animals.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Our goal is to improve the health and production of the Northwest Alabama beef herd by performing more herd vaccinations and testing for infectious and contagious diseases. By doing this, we hope to establish a safer and more abundant food supply in the area.Because of this grant, we will be able to purchase a hydraulic, portable chute system for cattle to allow for safer and more efficient handling to accomplish this overarching goal. We will also obtain a new ambulatory veterinary truck and box insert that will allow us to travel to our patients and provide medical services for these animals.1. Each year of the grant period, we aim to serve 15% more beef herds in the service area.2. We project vaccinating 1,000 head of beef cattle in the first year of the project, then increasing the number of vaccinations yearly for the next two years of the project by 25%. After the first 3 years, we project growth to slightly decrease.3. We expect to pregnancy check approximately 3,000 head of cows in the first year and increase by 30% yearly for the remainder of the project.4. We project to perform sampling for testing of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy on at least 30 cows the first year. Afterward, we expect to increase sampling by 50% yearly.
Project Methods
Each time we work a beef cattle herd of treat sick beef cattle where the owner does not have a proper working facility, we will use our portable hydraulic squeeze chute in order to safely and efficiently work them. We will count every cow that goes through the chute and what was performed at the time. We will also record where the herd is located in the shortage area, the date, who owns the animals, how many we worked, the time it took to work the cattle, and what the drive time was to the location. For any service performed on beef cattle in the shortage area with the aid of our ambulatory truck and vet box, we will also record the owner, the date, how many animals were worked, the time it took to work the animals, and the drive time to the location. By recording this information, we can evaluate the success of our project and determine if we are reaching our goals.