Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
Logan Bethel Veterinary Services, LLC is a large animal clinic that provides ambulatory and haul in services to beef, dairy, small ruminants, poultry, cervid and equine clients in the heart of Veterinary Shortage Area KY244. This designated shortage area has a disproportionate ratio of large animal veterinarians to the food animal population. Our clinic has goals to help with this problem by attracting an additional veterinarian and adding another mobile unit to service the clients of KY244. The grant funds will be used to purchase a veterinary truck, vet box, and portable ultrasounds. Our clinic would also use a portion of the funds to establish a summer internship program for local junior and senior high school students who are interested in choosing large animal veterinary medicine as a career path.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
Logan Bethel Veterinary Services, LLC is applying for the VSGP RPE grant with the overall goals to improve the rural agricultural economy in KY244 by helping producers become more profitable and attract current and future large animal practitioners to live and work in rural Kentucky. The objectives to achieve these goals are as follows: 1) continue to provide and improve, reliable mobile veterinary care and reproductive services for production animals within KY244 2) facilitate producer education with a focus on improving profitability though better herd management and instilling the importance of emergency preparedness 3)implement a summer internship program for local future large animal veterinarians. This project aligns with the USDA strategic goals of ensuring America's agriculture systems are prosperous, expanding opportunities for economic development and improving quality of life in rural communities. With the funds from this grant Logan Bethel expects to increase our food animal farm visits by 10% each year thus expanding our services to approximately 400 additional client contacts within the program's timeframe.
Project Methods
In the first year, with the proceeds from the grant, Logan Bethel will purchase the Chevrolet 2500 4x4 truck and the accompanying Bowie unit along with the IMV Easi-Scan ultrasound units. The addition of a new veterinary truck will enable us to schedule more farm visits in a timelier manner. Even if we are unable to immediately attract another veterinarian, the truck will be utilized to give our other vet trucks a break since the average mileage on the current vehicles in use is over 204,000 miles each. The addition of the ultrasound units will also facilitate scheduling as we are often constrained by available equipment as the doctors currently have to share ultrasound units. The Easi-Scans will allow for pregnancy diagnosis to be performed efficiently and safely for both the veterinarian and the animal. They will also be used as a teaching tool to emphasize to livestock owners the economic importance of pregnancy rates in the overall profitability of their operation. According to the University of Kentucky Department of Agricultural Economics, the yearly cost of feeding, breeding, and maintaining a spring calving cow in the state of Kentucky is $550 per head. The ability to show our producers the real economic benefit of identifying open animals will have an immediate positive impact on the producer's bottom dollar. The ultrasound machines will also be used on sheep and goats to help with obstetrics issues, optimize birth management and ultimately increase production efficiency.Logan Bethel Veterinary Services has always been an advocate for educating and teaching others in the practice. Veterinary students from all over the nation visit the practice for two to four-week externship rotations. The clinic sees a substantial volume of different large animal species and for this reason students regard us as a unique place where they can see a wide variety of cases. Our passion for teaching is why the most exciting portion of this request is the proposed summer internship for local high school students. In the eight years since the establishment of the clinic, there have been four associates leave the clinic after about two years of employment. In every case the reason for leaving was either the associate or their spouse wanted to return home. The pull of wanting to go home to practice and raise your family is real. The goal of helping to alleviate the large animal veterinarian shortage must come from within the KY244 counties itself. Our clinic, with the help of local FFA teachers and 4H leaders, wants to identify and empower junior and senior high school students who express interest in choosing large animal medicine as a lifelong career. There will be an application and interview process to help identify potential candidates. The students would be employed for a period of ten weeks throughout the summer to introduce them to large animal vet life. The desired outcome will be to follow-up and support these students through years two and three of the program and be their mentors throughout the undergraduate and ultimately vet school years. The idea of a "homegrown" veterinary professional is not new to the clinic. Dr. Woodall, a native of the area, has had a rewarding large animal career spanning three decades.Client education has also been a priority of the clinic since its inception. Logan Bethel Veterinary Services holds separate client education meetings for each species throughout the year. LBVS sponsors a beef meeting, a dairy meeting, equine education meeting and a farrier hands-on meeting. There are also 4H club, local Cattlemen's Association and drill team speaking engagements. With the start of this grant the clinic would also like to implement a small ruminant meeting. These meetings are supported financially in part by different pharmaceutical companies and vendors thus not requiring any grant funds. However, the clinic will use this opportunity to present different topics that align with the objectives of our VSGP application. Topics that address reproductive efficiency and strategies to improve profitability will be tailored to each species-specific meeting. Clients of all farm species will be educated on the need for disaster preparedness as stated in the KY244 shortage nomination document. Unfortunately, in recent years Kentucky has been devastated by two separate natural disasters. On December 11, 2021, after spending the night sheltering in the crawl space of his house, Dr. Woodall's phone started ringing at daybreak. Clients across western Kentucky were calling after the devastation of the terrible record-breaking tornadoes during the night. Our veterinarians worked diligently to navigate the downed trees and powerlines to get to and treat the injured animals. There were farms with collapsed dairy barns with cows trapped inside, horse barns that were just gone and livestock missing from fields. In those first few days the clinic treated numerous lacerations, fractures and punctures and sadly performed several euthanasias. Logan Bethel will use resources and training from the USDA Disaster Planning website as well as resources from the American Association of Equine Practitioners to help ensure the livestock owners of KY244 are prepared the next time a crisis occurs like the tornadoes of 2021 or the floods of eastern Kentucky in 2022.