District VIII

Abstract

In some instances, they have their own horses to round them up, separate the calves, and work them. They'll do everything under the sun to them-vaccinate, castrate, dehorn and etc. The majority of ours did answer that they administer drugs and medication, that they dehorn, that they do castrations, so it's according to what side of the fence you are on as to whether castration is proper or not. If you are an equine practitioner you wouldn't have your lay person castrating a horse. Is it all right to worm a cow, worm a calf? Is it all right for a lay person-animal technician-to tube worm a horse? Some of them said we didn't have to get into these discussions, but these are things we're going to have to face head on; we're not going to solve any problems by dodging them, let's meet them. Three of our states-Texas, Oklahoma, and I believe they said Mississippi-contain about 89 or 90% of the brucellosis reactor herds in the United States. A few years back-eight or nine years-we busted the state and federal regulatory people because they had laymen testing cattle·. The job's got to be done. Now, in our state we have lay technicians that can bleed and use a card test. They have to be supervised. About all you have to do as supervising veterinarian is sign your name to the test sheets. They draw blood samples.