Presidents Message
Dr. Dave Sjeklocha
Is there any way you can do better?
Animal welfare has been a passion of mine for many years, but to be upfront, it wasn’t always that way. While I have spent virtually all my life caring for livestock – cattle, horses, hogs, turkeys, chickens – I didn’t give animal welfare a great deal of thought. Sure, we took good care of our livestock, but that was just something that was expected. I was often told, “If you don’t take care of them, they won’t take care of you.” We did it without giving it a name like “animal welfare”.
During my 4th year of veterinary college, I was prepping a horse with a winter haircoat for surgery. I shaved an area over the jugular vein so a catheter could be placed. At that time, we used disposable razors for shaving. I made several passes over the dry hair while a surgery resident watched me. She asked, “When you shave, do you use shaving cream?” I told her that I did. She then said, “You know, you are going to scrub that shaved area with soap before placing that catheter, correct? Why couldn’t you have just soaped the area first and then shaved it? Would have been a lot easier on the horse, don’t you think?” It made perfect sense. The soap was right there, so it wouldn’t have been any more effort, and in fact, would have been less effort. I remember thinking, “It’s not that hard to find a better way, if you just think about it.”
Then, a few years after graduation, I found myself on the management team of a large feedyard in Colorado. My primary responsibility was to oversee the cattle team, but I also had the pleasure of working with one of my mentors doing contract research at the same feedyard. The feedyard hired a custom processing crew, so when new cattle arrived, I coordinated with them to get the cattle processed in a timely manner and made sure they always had the supplies and equipment they needed to do their job. They always had a couple of electric prods, which meant keeping a supply of batteries and wands on hand. Our animal health supplier was local, so I could drive about five miles and pick up whatever was needed. One day, the supplier had only wands that were one-foot-long, as opposed to the four-foot-long wands the crew preferred. So, I bought the one-footers. The crew wasn’t happy, but I found that we were breaking far less wands and the battery expense was drastically cut. With the one-foot wands, the workers were having to get close to the animal as it waited in the alley, and when they got close, the animal moved without having to use the prod! Now, please go back and read the last line of the previous paragraph.
That’s when I really started paying attention to how we do things and trying to figure out better ways to handle cattle. From there, it expanded to all things welfare. Before I go on, I would like to clarify that there is a difference between animal welfare and animal rights. Animal welfare allows use of animals for food, clothing, entertainment and experimentation as long as humane guidelines are followed. Animal rights says using animals for any of the aforementioned purposes is not acceptable, even if humane guidelines are followed. Many animal rights groups call themselves animal welfare groups in an attempt to blur the differences.
When I started consulting for feedyards on my own, I pushed animal welfare with all of my clients. After I had talked about animal welfare several times with one manager, he asked, “Doc, you bring up animal welfare a lot. Do you think we’re abusing our cattle?” Admittedly, I didn’t see that question coming and it set me back for a minute. Indeed, I had not seen any blatant abuse. I responded, “No, I don’t, but I’ll answer your question with a question: Is there any way you can do better?” My question gave him pause, just like his did me.
To me, consistent effort to improve is one of the major keys to success – in life, business, research, relationships – and animal welfare. We have all been guilty of falling into a comfortable routine, which may be adequate, but doesn’t provide for improvement. Is animal welfare being addressed in our daily routines? The minute we start thinking that our efforts are “good enough”, is the minute we start falling behind. Is there any way you can do better?
Dr. Dave Sjeklocha
