September 19, 2023 • 45 mins
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi everybody.
How are you doing?
This is Ethan Gillum, your hoston our new podcast called
Echoes of the Land Tradition,agriculture, livestock and
Expertise.
We on this podcast, we aretrying to reach out and talk to
the folks that have beenintegral in shaping the ag and
livestock industry yesterday andtoday, from our local experts
(00:31):
here in Severe County, utah, tonationally recognized
professionals.
We're getting their stories,expertise and passions for the
education of our listeners.
Stay tuned, everybody.
On this episode we're going tobe talking with Dr Dave Siklocha
.
He's from Merck Animal Health.
(00:51):
He's a feedlot veterinarian bytrade.
He also specializes in animalwelfare, animal handling
techniques, especially in thefeed yard, and training guys on
the ground and showing themthose techniques that make their
operations more efficient andless stressful.
The stuff he has to say, guys,is really interesting.
(01:11):
It's a money saver and it's abig deal today, not only for the
public eye, but also for thesuccess and the, I believe, the
prosperity of future outlooks inthe ranching world and the
livestock and ag industry as awhole.
Listen in, guys.
(01:32):
This is good.
How did you decide that youwere going to be a veterinarian
and the capacity of theveterinarian that you are now?
Is that what you imagined whenyou thought of the job, dave.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Siklocha, to answer your second question, not really
, but I do enjoy it.
I enjoy it thoroughly.
But how I decided to become aveterinarian, well, that's going
to roll back a long time.
Dave Siklocha, that's good,dave Siklocha, back in.
I was born in Iowa, and when Iwas about 10 years old my family
(02:06):
went on one of the few familyvacations that we ever went on.
My aunt and uncle lived in SaltLake City and my uncle was doing
a medical residency out therein Salt Lake City, and so we
went out to visit them and, youknow, just hung around with
(02:28):
family.
We did go camping in themountains, but then on the way
back home to Iowa, my dadmentioned something about there
was a 100,000 head capacity feedyard that had recently been
built in Colorado, owned by theMonfort family, and where we
(02:50):
lived in Iowa.
My dad's stepdad had a largefarming operation, but they also
fed a couple thousand, had acattle, and so at that time the
Monfort family had an actualobservation tower on the edge of
(03:13):
their feed yard so people couldjust stop by and climb up in
the tower and look over the feedyard.
And that's kind of when I gothooked on cattle feeding,
because I can remember this dayclimbing up those steps and of
course there was a solid walland a rail around the top of the
observation tower and as Iwalked toward that rail and all
(03:35):
those cattle came into view andall those feed trucks going all
over and cowboys pushing cattlehere and there, and just the
managed chaos just reallytrolled me Right in front of you
.
Yeah, it was just amazing to seeall those cattle.
And that's kind of when Idecided I knew I wanted to be
involved in cattle feeding and Ialways kind of wanted to be a
(03:56):
veterinarian.
I took a little longer gettingaround to that step than most
folks.
After I got out of high schoolI went to college off and on for
a year and a half at what wasthen Northeast Missouri State
University, and my heart justwasn't in it.
(04:16):
And then so I went to work in asmall feed yard in southwest
Missouri and road pens anddoctored cattle, processed
cattle even called feed and fedcattle.
But my primary responsibilitieswere in the animal health side.
And while I was there I gotmarried to a woman that probably
(04:43):
should have been certified asinsane because she number one,
she married me and number two.
Shortly after we got married Isaid you know, I really would
like to give this vet schoolthing a try.
And she says, okay, let's do it.
And so she worked and kept thegroceries on the table while I
went to school when we started.
(05:04):
And I went to Kansas State andstarted in the fall of 1987 and
I was six weeks shy on my 25thbirthday as I started my
undergrad there.
So in 25 is a pretty typicalage for most veterinarians to be
getting out of school, so therewas quite a push there for me
(05:27):
to relearn how to learn.
My study habits were never thatgreat and I really had to put
those to pressure, but it allworked out.
After three years of undergradI got accepted to K-State and
graduated from the vet schoolthere in 1994.
(05:51):
And from then on my goal wasalways to primarily focus on
feed yards, and you know I tellpeople that's what I went to vet
school for was to become a feedyard veterinarian and I
(06:11):
practiced in Southwest Nebraskaand tried to develop a feed yard
consulting practice.
It was slow going and then Iwent to work for actually in
management of a feed yard for alarge cattle feeding company in
Colorado for a few years andthen wound up going back to
(06:31):
Nebraska to the same practiceand buying in to it.
And then another opportunity, abetter opportunity, as far as
feed yard consulting popped upfor me.
So I sold out of the practicein Nebraska and moved to a
little town of Sublet, kansas,and practiced there and from
there on just did nearly allfeed yard consulting, a little
(06:54):
bit of horse work here and there, but it was nearly all feed
yard consulting, and that's kindof when I my biggest consulting
client asked me to join them onstaff.
But no, it's been a veryrewarding career.
You know, it's not very oftenthat when you set out to do
(07:18):
something, it turns out almostexactly the way you hoped it
would, and my career really has.
And then in the in 2018, thefamily that owned that feed yard
(07:38):
did a little repositioning andwound up selling off a couple
other feed yards, and at thatpoint, I started looking for
something else to do, and thismark position came open and, by
virtue of the fact that we haddone a lot of research for at
(08:01):
that feed yard for virtually allthe pharmaceutical companies, I
noticed that everyoneappreciated their employers that
from the differentpharmaceutical companies, but I,
it seemed like the Merckemployees complained about their
employers the least, and sothat was to me that was a good
(08:25):
sign, and I knew a few peopleand Merck have some very good
friends.
In fact, I've got a class, I'vegot a school classmate that
works for Merck as well, and soit was.
It was a good move for us andand the nice thing about it is
they.
They told me I could kind oflive wherever I wanted to, but
they wanted me to focus on feedyards.
(08:46):
And so, by that the time thathit, our two oldest kids had
graduated from college and beenmarried and we're starting to
have kids, and so we now livewithin two miles of one set of
grandkids and with 10 miles ofanother set of grandkids.
Wow.
So we moved from sublet tonorth up by Topeka, kansas, and
(09:07):
so, yeah, that's kind of the thenutshell of it.
Merck, when I, when I joinedthem it was I was trying to
figure out what this techservices position was going to
be like.
Frankly, I'm still kind oftrying to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So the official title is a technical services
veterinarian right.
Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And but they're keeping you in your wheelhouse.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah.
And the things I'm passionateabout, you know, animal welfare,
you know it's, it's.
I've got some great colleaguesto work with, my my supervisors
are open to almost anything thatI would like to do and, and so
(09:54):
you know, and one of them is islike this songmanship and
stewardship thing.
I attend most of these, you know, representing Merck, and so,
yeah, it's been a lot of funbecause I know, while I focus on
the, the, the, the focus on onfeed yards, I do get to kind of
(10:14):
travel all over the U S, yeah,and and I get to get out on
farms and ranches.
You know, you, you, you visit afarm in in West Virginia and
that I'd never gotten to get outon that land and look at the
cattle and and ask that, that's,ask that producer why he does
(10:34):
the things the way he does, andthen I, then I might show up in
in Idaho with another on anotherranch and and it's just
interesting to see all thedifferent ways that and reasons
why cattle are managed the waythey are in their different
environments.
And you know it makes a lot ofsense and it's, you know what,
(10:57):
what might work in in Nevadawould never work in Georgia, in
vice versa, but it it worksthere, yeah, in in those
respective places.
But it's, it's reallyintriguing to get involved or at
least be able to see firsthandsome of these differences in in
(11:21):
production.
I think that's probably.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I like what you said because that's that's one of the
interesting things, at least inmy opinion, and and what I've
learned that there's not a lotof species out there, there's
not a lot of animals out therethat can adjust to a lot of
diversity.
You know they're, they'rereally specific to where they
are or where they start out,right and they're whether you
want to call it biosphere orwherever they're biomer or just
(11:44):
their their home range.
But it's interesting to see,you know guys working cows in
Washington state and then guysworking them in Louisiana and
they've got 50 head on on 10acres, you know, and the grass
is up to your waist and inWashington they're putting 50
head on, you know 700 acres,trying to find enough for them.
(12:05):
But something else you saidthat I was, I thought was kind
of a I don't know what peoplecall them nowadays like a buzz,
a buzz phrase or a buzz word ishow you said.
You know you're, you're afeedlot guy, a feeding guy,
which is really unique becauseyou also talk about and I hope
you can maybe we can get you toexpand just a little bit on why
(12:28):
you talk about animal welfare,because I don't think a lot of
people associate feed yard guyswith animal welfare.
They don't like to anyway, butthey 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 welfarethat turns your gears?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Well, of course, remember, I love beef, I love
the beef industry and I want tosee it succeed.
And I understand that there aresome people that are concerned
about how cattle are cared forin feedlots and I like a good
case stator.
I'm a big fan of Bill Snyderand one of his mantras that he
(13:10):
preached to all his players isthat do a little bit better
today than you did yesterday,and that's kind of.
I've adopted that mantra myselfand you know it's not unique to
Coach Snyder.
I just like to give him creditfor it.
But yeah, but so that's that'skind of what got me into it.
(13:35):
I've kind of and this is goingto sound like I'm tooting my own
horn but I've kind of alwayshad a knack for just for animal
handling and I can see ways thatwe can do things better.
I see things that we are doingand if I don't like them I try
(13:55):
to change them, and so that'swhat kind of what got me going
in the animal welfare direction.
You know some of the things.
Like if we look at where I wasprimarily practicing there in
Kansas, it's a fairly dry areaand that's the reason a lot of
(14:20):
cattle are fed there is becausewe don't have to deal with with
mud as a rule, yeah.
And I think by virtue of thefact that we have that dry area,
we kind of gotten away frombedding cattle and we figure
(14:44):
that, okay, the soil's dry, thepen's dry, and and so they got a
dry place to lay down, let'snot worry about bedding.
But it's pretty amazing, andthat's one of the first things I
noticed was when we put beddingout, those calves that were
laying on that dry dirt wouldget up and come over and lay in
that bedding.
And another thing when this iswhen I was in in in Colorado, we
(15:13):
had a processing crew and acustom processing crew that
worked at that yard and theywere a good processing crew but
they had several electric prodsand actually the feed yard owned
the prods and they had the longwands on them and they were
(15:39):
always breaking the wands andthey were always running out of
of batteries.
And so I was kind of in chargeof of making getting cattle to
that crew and everything and andarranging getting all the
vaccines up there that theyneeded to administer and that
sort of thing.
And one day they told me, doc,we gotta, we need, we need a
(16:03):
couple of new wands for theelectric prods and we're out of
batteries.
And so I ran into the healthstore not really thinking
anything of it, and, as it turnsout, the animal health store
had just one foot long wands.
That's all they had.
They were out of the the longerwands and so they needed them.
(16:23):
So I bought them and I broughtthem out there, and the crew
wasn't very happy, I feel like.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I know where this is going, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And.
But I said, well, it's whatyou've got to deal with.
And so what we found out therewas that, of course, the shorter
wand was harder to break.
They weren't sticking it inplaces that didn't need to go,
and the other thing was they hadto get close to the cattle to
to move them.
And so not only did we quitbreaking wands, but our battery,
(16:58):
our electric prod battery billjust dropped through the floor
and they just weren't using theelectric prods as much because
they had to actually move to thecattle, and as they got close
to the cattle, the cattlewouldn't move without them.
And so that really struck achord with me and that's really
(17:19):
what put me on the road tolooking at things that we can do
better as far as animal welfareis concerned.
And then when I joined I'lljust say the name, the the went
on staff with that, with ourlargest cattle feeding client.
It's a cattle empire.
When I joined them, that wasone of their focuses too.
(17:39):
They knew I had an interest inanimal welfare and they wanted
their crews to be focused onanimal welfare, and so that was
that was part of my majorresponsibilities was getting
everybody up to snuff on cattlehandling and that sort of thing,
and it took.
It took a little bit ofconvincing to get these guys in,
(18:01):
and one of the first things wedid was we utilized the national
BQA welfare assessment, not anaudit.
It was an assessment at thattime To see where they were at,
yeah, and, and part of it wasthat.
You know, part of theassessment besides cattle
handling or besides the otherthings you saw in the yard, was
(18:24):
cattle handling, and so we'dwatch them put a hundred head
cattle through the chute andyou'd record how many times they
did use an electric prod, howmany, how many times the cattle
vocalized how many of themjumped out of the squeeze chute
those sorts of things Ran out ofthe chute, yeah.
Okay, okay, yeah, and and ofcourse, those are all indicators
(18:49):
of of stress.
Yeah, so that assessmentbasically said you needed to use
an electric prod on less than10% of the cattle.
And when I told our crews thatthat was going to be their,
their benchmark, it'sinteresting because they really
(19:10):
didn't think they could possiblywork cattle in that way and do
it without.
Without maybe they were goingto exceed it by a long ways, or
or they weren't going to get anygetting a cattle to be
processed, and so we had threedifferent processing barns,
three different processing crews.
(19:30):
First time we did it.
They came close, but none ofthem essentially passed the
assessment.
They thought they werestruggling.
After they didn't pass it, thenI started working one-on-one
with each of the workers as muchas I could and showing them
better cattle handlingtechniques.
(19:51):
Then the second time, just aweek or so later, they passed it
with flying colors.
We did that assessment monthlyfor six or eight months and then
we started going quarterly.
The crews took it as achallenge.
(20:12):
When they figured out that theycould work cattle without
overusing the electric prod,then it became easier for them
because they enjoyed their workmore.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Everyone is stressed about it, angry about it,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Anger is a big thing.
Yeah, so two or three percentwas tops, is all they'd used
electric prod on.
It got to where I would goassess crews on a quarterly
basis and we might go three orfour assessments and not one of
(20:56):
the crews would use the electricprod even once.
Yeah, they got that good at it.
There were some changes to thefacilities we made to try to
make it better.
We had in credit cattle empirein the Brown family for spending
the money.
We got away from the circularsweeps and the snakes and we
(21:19):
went to Bud boxes with opensides.
I like that.
Yeah, I had nothing against thecircular sweeps and the curve
valley ways.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
But if you get a guy who knows how to use a box.
Absolutely, it's quick.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
There's some training there.
As I end, temple Grandin hassaid this herself.
When she designed those, herinitial goal was to and this
isn't her words, but shebasically wanted to make them
idiot proof that anybody canwork cattle through them and
that's just not possible.
Yeah, and she knows that.
She said that.
(21:57):
But with the Bud box it doesrequire a little thinking, a
little bit of manipulation.
A little bit of step, yeah, andthe guys, those crews, picked up
on that so quick.
Once they understood theprinciple of it, they picked up
(22:17):
on it really quick and thecattle were calmer, and that's
another thing.
When I first started workingwith them and before we started
redesigning our facilities, Iwas working with one particular
crew and instead of filling upthe tub which is a big mistake,
(22:42):
everybody wants to fill that tubup and use it as a holding pen.
I just started having thembring in just six or eight at a
time and go right into thealleyway and then the sweep gate
.
The only time it stopped iswhen it was open.
So when you started pushing itshut, as soon as the last calf
went into the alleyway youopened it back up and got a few
(23:06):
more.
It meant a little more walking,but when we got done with that
pen of cattle, the implantercame and thanked me for training
, for working with that crew.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I'm getting myself beat up all the time.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It made his job so much easier.
They come in hot into the shoe.
Absolutely, we're throwingtheir heads around and that sort
of thing.
So now it's, and when you seethose kind of changes,
differences, improvements thatcan be made, it makes your job
worthwhile.
(23:40):
Oh yeah, it feels like you'veaccomplished something.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Well, that's large scale.
Impact on that too, because incollege when I did animal
science.
I thought my reproduction classand anatomy class.
I really enjoyed them and Ithought they were going to be
the most fun.
But probably the most fun classI had is I took animal handling
and behavior at BYU, idaho, andthat was I remember calling my
(24:05):
friends, calling my parents andsaying you won't believe we
loaded bulls on a trailer,yearling bulls, and they stayed
there with the door open andlearning how to work a butt box.
And probably the mostsignificant thing that I learned
was I came away from workingcows clean and I wasn't tired
(24:26):
and I wasn't angry.
And I remember the professorused to say the first word out
of almost every cattle guy'smouth when something goes wrong
is dumb cow.
He says do you really thinkit's the cow's fault?
I mean, you spend more timetraining the people but once
they get it, the cows even liketoday out there, having seen it
(24:47):
done before, you'd notice thatman, 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 asudden there's four standing.
Well, only a couple of themleave.
They learn a lot quicker thanwe do where the pressure is, and
so I've always thought that'sreally an impressive thing to
(25:08):
realize, but it's probably thehardest thing to do is implement
it with the guys that actuallyhave to do it on the ground.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I would agree, and you mentioned that dumb cow
thing and I've got a talk I'veactually given it here at some
of these stockmanship andstewardship before and it's what
I call common cattle handlingmistakes and it's just a list of
silly things that we do and wedon't really even think about
them.
But I always finish up thattalk saying that most of our
(25:39):
problems with cattle handlingare not due to stupid cattle and
I stop right there, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
And then people figure out the rest.
Yeah, yeah, that's true, and Ithink I would say probably the
number one reason behind that isthat we've all been trained and
I like to think of myself as, Iguess, a progressive cattle guy
, and my dad as well but I thinkwe were all trained in that
Hurry up, get this job done,let's go before the sun's down
(26:09):
and that translated into a lotof sitting behind all the cows,
pushing them and prodding them,and I remember my professor used
to say you could make this towhere you could just sit on your
horse and eat a sandwich.
The cows will start doing it ifyou'll let them learn.
And that initial patiencebecause the breed of people that
(26:29):
we are just don't naturallycome by a lot of patience and
going off what you said.
I think there's a lot ofresearch that we've done in
different fields as far asthings that translate into
dollar bills, like heat stress,dollar bills loss or feeds, tons
of feeds but cattle handlingtranslates into dollar bills
(26:52):
just as much, absolutely, asanything else.
Is there anything that you'veseen that specifically on the
production side, where you cansay it would be hard for me to
put some really good scientificdata behind it.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
But when it comes to cattle handling and you've got a
crew that understands how to doit, with a minimal amount of
stress, with a minimal amount ofelectric prodding and that sort
of thing, and the cattle exitthe chute at a walker, at the
most to trot, and then theybreak into a walk.
(27:31):
As that became more and more ofa norm for us, we could see, I
felt like I could see the healthof the cattle improve.
And the other end of it isespecially when you're, for
(27:54):
instance, you get in some lightcalves and they might get a
couple implants while they're atthe feed yard where they need
to get run through the chuteagain.
If you handle and write thatfirst time, that second time
through the chute, it's going tobe so much easier.
And so and the vice versa istrue as well If you mess it up
(28:17):
the first time, it gets harder.
So yeah, as far as the truedollars and cents, I can't put a
dollar figure on it, but Iguess the dollar figure is.
It's just the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It is the right thing to do and I agree with you when
you talk about some of thecosts, especially ranchers.
But feed yard guys and dairyguys go through there's more
costs than just feeding cows,even though that's the biggest
cost broken equipment you goeasy on your equipment.
You go easy on your crew.
You're not sending guys to thehospital.
(28:51):
You're not buying a new chuteor buying new panels.
What are those things add up?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And that's another thing is the more we stressed
good animal welfare, good cattlehandling, et cetera, the our
employee turnover rate dropped.
Yeah, they like their job, yeah, they enjoyed it and they
stayed on and they were justhappy they were just happier
(29:22):
workers Instead of thinking thatthey had to get so many cattle.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Best of me a day.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, they were stressed, and that's another
thing.
After we kind of got everybodyschooled and trained and they
accepted it and put it to work.
And then I put a lot of effortinto it, but so did they.
They put a lot of effort intolearning.
But there was one time a clientcustomer came by.
(29:54):
A feeding customer came by andhe wanted to see this bud box
system work, because at thattime it was still a fairly novel
idea.
So we went in and he watched uswork those cattle and of course
we'd taken the hydraulic pumpoff the chute and put it outside
so it was quiet in there.
(30:17):
The guys weren't yelling at thecattle.
That's another thing that Istress.
You don't yell.
There were no stock whipsPeople.
They carried flags or paddleand I'm not even a big fan of
the paddle, but the electricprod was there but it was hung
on a hook and the cattle weregoing through and the workers
(30:40):
could have a conversation, likeyou and I were having, and while
we were working cattle and theyweren't having to yell at each
other and the customer that wasthere to watch it, he said this
is really nice, but he says I'vegot to work cattle faster than
this.
And I said well, how fast doyou think you've got to work
(31:02):
cattle?
And he says, well, I got to atleast do 120 head an hour.
And I said you start counting.
And we were working them at 150head an hour.
It was just that quiet.
And just the fact that we werequiet and the guys were calm and
the cattle were calm, he didn'tthink there was any way we were
(31:23):
working cattle quickly.
They were going fast.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Guys don't realize how much time gets wasted and
beaten from behind.
We're yelling at your guys.
Or then you get badrelationships on your feed lots
where guys don't like the bossbecause he's making them.
There's a lot that gets blamedon the cow and it's just not
that way, getting first off theowner to accept it and then the
(31:50):
other guys just say, ok, we'regoing to work at this Because it
does take work.
I mean sometimes, especiallywhen you're working a bed box,
or if you get into a little bitof open area and you're taking
too quick of a step or one steptoo many or something, and
that's frustrating itself, butman, it's gratifying once you
(32:11):
get there.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Absolutely, and to me it's fun.
I mean, if I could sit there, Icould have fun all day putting
cattle through a bud box intothe alleyway, just I would enjoy
doing that.
Just get flow cattle, yep, yep,and just figuring out what the
(32:35):
moves I need to make, thepressure I need to put on them,
and that sort of thing I couldenjoy doing that all day long.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
You know, I think probably one of the invitations
I would extend some of thebecause I've thought this.
After I took that class Ithought, you know, no one's
going to want to do this, noone's going to want to take this
time, and it's really not thatmuch.
That's the first thing.
It's not that much time.
It's just effort and if you putthat much effort into cussing
out a cow, you can learnsomething you know.
(33:05):
But anyone that thinks that acow, I guess and correct me if
I'm wrong, but as you repeatthis, especially with your same
herd throughout the year, youstart training your herd, you
start training your feedlot, thecows start to learn it, and I
think some people don't thinkthat's possible and I guess the
invitation I always thought waswe ought to just invite them to
(33:25):
a dairy Because you think cowscan't be trained Absolutely.
Those cows don't hardly gettouched.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, Well, and I look back on my, when I was
growing up, we, our family, weAI'd our cow herd and we'd they
were out on pasture and it is abeef herd and we raised horses.
So we'd saddle our horses everynight and go out, gather the
(33:51):
cows, bring them in heat detectfor an hour and then let them
out, and then we do same thingin the morning.
Mm-hmm, and after three, fourdays of that, those cows that
see us come out of a barn withour horses and they just pick up
and start walking, Stop comingin.
Yeah, and you're exactly right.
(34:12):
You know.
I mentioned that.
Common cattle handling mistakesthat I talk that I like to give.
One of them is what I call thesifter and that's the guy that
he needs five-headed cattle togo into the alleyway but he
brings 30 because he's justgoing to let 25 of them slip by
(34:33):
and he hopes he has five left toget into the alleyway when he
gets up there and what happensthere is those cattle learn that
they can't escape.
They messes up the othersAbsolutely and by the time he
gets done, working the group ofcattle and this is especially
bad in a cow herd, like youmentioned whether year after
(34:55):
year those cows get sifted.
You know they've escaped somany times that when they get to
the last 20, 30, maybe even 40head, they get on the fight,
because I got away last time andnow I've got to get in there
and cattle start jumping fences,People start getting hurt.
(35:17):
That sort of thing occurs whenbut you've trained them to do
that.
And the bad part about it iswhen you tell that sifter that
he needs to run the brandingiron and you put someone else
back there.
That's a good cattle handler.
(35:38):
He's got to retrain that herdand it's going to take a while.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And pretty good chance he might get here.
I can't tell you how many timesI've been out there, you know,
like when we would preg checkfor different ranchers and a cow
would come through and you know, like a six or eight year old
cow and he goes, oh, this oldrank thing.
And you know they developedthat little relationship over
the years.
They know, and it's just funnyhearing you say that because
(36:06):
they know that cow and that cowknows them.
You know, and so I guess youknow we tend to not think of
cows as intelligent beings, butreally they will learn what to
do and what not to do.
But they'll also learn at thesame time what's easy.
You know, and if we make, likethey said today, if we make the
(36:29):
easy things or whatever the butwe need them to do easy, then a
lot more can be accomplished.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
That's impressive.
So I guess, then, my otherquestion is do you do you like
where you're at now?
Are you happy at this stage?
Is there more that you'rewaiting to do, or do you feel
like you've hit the groove?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Well, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.
I'm enjoying the opportunitiesI've got.
You know, I'm 60 years old, butI, I still want to be effective
, and so do I feel like I'm done.
No, I still want to.
(37:17):
I still want to just like, justlike.
I'm just like.
I'm just like.
I'm just like my favoritefootball coach, bill Snyder.
I still want to get a littlebetter, a bit better every day.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
So do you so kind of leading into this question then
is what's the what's your thingright now?
I mean, I know, I know theanimal handling, the animal
welfare thing.
Is there anything in specificwhere you're putting a lot of
effort into right now?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Well, I think I really want to continue working
in the animal welfare front andyou know, and I'm pretty
passionate about antimicrobialstewardship and food safety.
Those are probably my threemain passions and you know, one
(38:04):
of the one of the concerns Ihave, speaking frankly, is is
the the what appears to be afairly widespread use of darts,
and I I understand the animalwelfare aspect of that, because
(38:24):
if the calf's lame and and heneeds an antibiotic and you
don't have facilities close andyou don't want to drive him a
mile, on a lame foot.
I get that, but I don't think itshould be the primary.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
The go to yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, the immediate thing and I think there's some
some of my concerns there alsohas to do with with
antimicrobial stewardship orantibiotic stewardship.
Those darts can only hold somuch volume, and so I'm fairly
convinced that a lot of us aremaking our antibiotic decisions
not on what might be the besttreatment for that animal, but
(39:05):
what will fit in that dart.
That's a good point.
I haven't thought about thatyet, and so that that's a that's
a concern I have.
But by the same token, the, thedart gun, is, is a handy tool.
It really is.
I just and and the other concern, that is, I was around when BQA
(39:30):
was first being developed and Igrew up giving injections in
the hip of cows and in the hipof calves, and because that's
where you did it, yeah, that'swhere you did it.
And one of my concerns with the, with the darts, is that we're
not going to be, we're going tostart finding more injection
(39:51):
site lesions left over from fromdark guns, yep, yep, cause we
don't hit in the right place,either accidentally or on
purpose, because that, that hindquarter is a pretty big target
and it's pretty convenient.
And, and so I'm, I'm afraidthat's.
My fear is that we'll startseeing more injection site
(40:12):
lesions at slaughter from that.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, which translates into some not good I
mean just like you're sayinglesions that people are seeing
at the slaughterhouse and that'slost money and and, frankly,
doesn't look good in the publicside.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Um so, uh, is that, is that more of a problem?
Just lack of facilities, whereyou see guys using those a lot,
or just I don't?
I don't want to call peoplelazy, I don't, right.
Is it a thing where it's like,well, this is just easier, right
?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
In some instances I think it is just easier Um the
uh.
But you know you get out herein this country where we're at,
where it's big open range andand uh, uh, you know it's going
to take an effort.
Um, of course, here you'reprobably going to be a little
more apt to find uh cowboys thatcan rope the calf and treat it
(41:10):
properly, or I guess I shouldsay treat it with a syringe as
opposed to a dart.
You get further east there'sthere's some good cowboys there,
but there are fewer and fartherbetween and uh, and I'm afraid
that's where a lot of it is isoccurring.
Um, you just can't find thepeople to uh, to uh that can go
(41:32):
out and rope a calf or, for thatmatter, even uh guide a calf in
, use a horse and guide a calfinto a facility to capture him
and and treat him thetraditional way.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I guess I should say Hmm.
Yeah, that would be.
That would be interestingbecause, honestly, that's the I
know.
I know the guys have been usingdart guns, but I'd never had
thought about that, especiallylike the dosage concern.
Um, I mean, I don't knowanything about what the darts,
who makes the darts or anythinglike that, but I wouldn't assume
(42:03):
there's a wide variety of dartsavailable to everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I think it was about three companies that that make
them Um.
One of them is, uh, is is morepopular than the other two, I'd
say.
But you know, um, um, when Iwas with with cattle empire, we,
uh, we were notified that bythe packer that there was a dart
in one of our carcasses.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Oh, it went all the way into the skin under the skin
.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
And uh, um, and so we didn't use darts.
And so the customer that ownedthat heifer, I called him up and
I said are you using darts downthere?
He said no, I don't use darts,I don't want to allow him on the
place.
And of course he Purchased thisgroup of heifers and then
(42:58):
grazed him on his ranch for acouple months before he sent him
to the feed yard, and so thatdart had been in that heifer
from the time she was a babycalf.
Oh, my word and and so you know,and that it's metal.
Yeah and so that's a daldoratedmeat, yep, and so, and and you
(43:18):
talk to the packing plant.
Guys, and if you go into apacking plant and talk to the
shift manager or something, anda Lot of times you say, hey,
what's it?
Are you having finding any dartsin?
And the one time I did it theguy pulled his desk drawer open
(43:40):
there seven or eight darts, ohmy gosh, that he'd found.
And so it's it's.
It's not, I guess, a hugeepidemic yet, but it is.
I think it's a, I think itcould be a potential problem.
The main thing you got to do ifyou're gonna use that equipment
is, if you shoot a dart, yougot to find the Dirt, find the
(44:00):
dog.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Yeah, I hate saying people need to be educated
because people want to beeducated, but you know, having
having a tool like thisavailable where someone can hear
someone's story and you knowthere are there are those things
.
I think back to what you saidat the beginning of have you
climbing up that tower andseeing all those cattle?
You know I remember as myselfas a kid, going out, you know,
(44:22):
in Little League and in themorning, seeing a baseball field
, and that was, that was mydream.
You know that was, and it stuckwith me to this day.
I can still think about it.
So, living out your passion, Imean, you can't ask for anything
more than a human life yeah, soit's been really good to have
you here and you know you're anexcellent resource, not only for
Merck but for for other people,and I Appreciate your time.
(44:48):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yep, I Glad to do it, and I'll just finish by saying
and repeating Bill Snyder, do alittle bit better today than you
did yesterday.
Absolutely, absolutely Well,thank you.
You bet, you bet, you bet.
Hi everybody.
How are you doing?
This is Ethan Gillum, your hoston our new podcast called
Echoes of the Land Tradition,agriculture, livestock and
Expertise.
We on this podcast, we aretrying to reach out and talk to
the folks that have beenintegral in shaping the ag and
livestock industry yesterday andtoday, from our local experts
(00:31):
here in Severe County, utah, tonationally recognized
professionals.
We're getting their stories,expertise and passions for the
education of our listeners.
Stay tuned, everybody.
On this episode we're going tobe talking with Dr Dave Siklocha
.
He's from Merck Animal Health.
(00:51):
He's a feedlot veterinarian bytrade.
He also specializes in animalwelfare, animal handling
techniques, especially in thefeed yard, and training guys on
the ground and showing themthose techniques that make their
operations more efficient andless stressful.
The stuff he has to say, guys,is really interesting.
(01:11):
It's a money saver and it's abig deal today, not only for the
public eye, but also for thesuccess and the, I believe, the
prosperity of future outlooks inthe ranching world and the
livestock and ag industry as awhole.
Listen in, guys.
(01:32):
This is good.
How did you decide that youwere going to be a veterinarian
and the capacity of theveterinarian that you are now?
Is that what you imagined whenyou thought of the job, dave.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Siklocha, to answer your second question, not really
, but I do enjoy it.
I enjoy it thoroughly.
But how I decided to become aveterinarian, well, that's going
to roll back a long time.
Dave Siklocha, that's good,dave Siklocha, back in.
I was born in Iowa, and when Iwas about 10 years old my family
(02:06):
went on one of the few familyvacations that we ever went on.
My aunt and uncle lived in SaltLake City and my uncle was doing
a medical residency out therein Salt Lake City, and so we
went out to visit them and, youknow, just hung around with
(02:28):
family.
We did go camping in themountains, but then on the way
back home to Iowa, my dadmentioned something about there
was a 100,000 head capacity feedyard that had recently been
built in Colorado, owned by theMonfort family, and where we
(02:50):
lived in Iowa.
My dad's stepdad had a largefarming operation, but they also
fed a couple thousand, had acattle, and so at that time the
Monfort family had an actualobservation tower on the edge of
(03:13):
their feed yard so people couldjust stop by and climb up in
the tower and look over the feedyard.
And that's kind of when I gothooked on cattle feeding,
because I can remember this dayclimbing up those steps and of
course there was a solid walland a rail around the top of the
observation tower and as Iwalked toward that rail and all
(03:35):
those cattle came into view andall those feed trucks going all
over and cowboys pushing cattlehere and there, and just the
managed chaos just reallytrolled me Right in front of you
.
Yeah, it was just amazing to seeall those cattle.
And that's kind of when Idecided I knew I wanted to be
involved in cattle feeding and Ialways kind of wanted to be a
(03:56):
veterinarian.
I took a little longer gettingaround to that step than most
folks.
After I got out of high schoolI went to college off and on for
a year and a half at what wasthen Northeast Missouri State
University, and my heart justwasn't in it.
(04:16):
And then so I went to work in asmall feed yard in southwest
Missouri and road pens anddoctored cattle, processed
cattle even called feed and fedcattle.
But my primary responsibilitieswere in the animal health side.
And while I was there I gotmarried to a woman that probably
(04:43):
should have been certified asinsane because she number one,
she married me and number two.
Shortly after we got married Isaid you know, I really would
like to give this vet schoolthing a try.
And she says, okay, let's do it.
And so she worked and kept thegroceries on the table while I
went to school when we started.
(05:04):
And I went to Kansas State andstarted in the fall of 1987 and
I was six weeks shy on my 25thbirthday as I started my
undergrad there.
So in 25 is a pretty typicalage for most veterinarians to be
getting out of school, so therewas quite a push there for me
(05:27):
to relearn how to learn.
My study habits were never thatgreat and I really had to put
those to pressure, but it allworked out.
After three years of undergradI got accepted to K-State and
graduated from the vet schoolthere in 1994.
(05:51):
And from then on my goal wasalways to primarily focus on
feed yards, and you know I tellpeople that's what I went to vet
school for was to become a feedyard veterinarian and I
(06:11):
practiced in Southwest Nebraskaand tried to develop a feed yard
consulting practice.
It was slow going and then Iwent to work for actually in
management of a feed yard for alarge cattle feeding company in
Colorado for a few years andthen wound up going back to
(06:31):
Nebraska to the same practiceand buying in to it.
And then another opportunity, abetter opportunity, as far as
feed yard consulting popped upfor me.
So I sold out of the practicein Nebraska and moved to a
little town of Sublet, kansas,and practiced there and from
there on just did nearly allfeed yard consulting, a little
(06:54):
bit of horse work here and there, but it was nearly all feed
yard consulting, and that's kindof when I my biggest consulting
client asked me to join them onstaff.
But no, it's been a veryrewarding career.
You know, it's not very oftenthat when you set out to do
(07:18):
something, it turns out almostexactly the way you hoped it
would, and my career really has.
And then in the in 2018, thefamily that owned that feed yard
(07:38):
did a little repositioning andwound up selling off a couple
other feed yards, and at thatpoint, I started looking for
something else to do, and thismark position came open and, by
virtue of the fact that we haddone a lot of research for at
(08:01):
that feed yard for virtually allthe pharmaceutical companies, I
noticed that everyoneappreciated their employers that
from the differentpharmaceutical companies, but I,
it seemed like the Merckemployees complained about their
employers the least, and sothat was to me that was a good
(08:25):
sign, and I knew a few peopleand Merck have some very good
friends.
In fact, I've got a class, I'vegot a school classmate that
works for Merck as well, and soit was.
It was a good move for us andand the nice thing about it is
they.
They told me I could kind oflive wherever I wanted to, but
they wanted me to focus on feedyards.
(08:46):
And so, by that the time thathit, our two oldest kids had
graduated from college and beenmarried and we're starting to
have kids, and so we now livewithin two miles of one set of
grandkids and with 10 miles ofanother set of grandkids.
Wow.
So we moved from sublet tonorth up by Topeka, kansas, and
(09:07):
so, yeah, that's kind of the thenutshell of it.
Merck, when I, when I joinedthem it was I was trying to
figure out what this techservices position was going to
be like.
Frankly, I'm still kind oftrying to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So the official title is a technical services
veterinarian right.
Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And but they're keeping you in your wheelhouse.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah.
And the things I'm passionateabout, you know, animal welfare,
you know it's, it's.
I've got some great colleaguesto work with, my my supervisors
are open to almost anything thatI would like to do and, and so
(09:54):
you know, and one of them is islike this songmanship and
stewardship thing.
I attend most of these, you know, representing Merck, and so,
yeah, it's been a lot of funbecause I know, while I focus on
the, the, the, the focus on onfeed yards, I do get to kind of
(10:14):
travel all over the U S, yeah,and and I get to get out on
farms and ranches.
You know, you, you, you visit afarm in in West Virginia and
that I'd never gotten to get outon that land and look at the
cattle and and ask that, that's,ask that producer why he does
(10:34):
the things the way he does, andthen I, then I might show up in
in Idaho with another on anotherranch and and it's just
interesting to see all thedifferent ways that and reasons
why cattle are managed the waythey are in their different
environments.
And you know it makes a lot ofsense and it's, you know what,
(10:57):
what might work in in Nevadawould never work in Georgia, in
vice versa, but it it worksthere, yeah, in in those
respective places.
But it's, it's reallyintriguing to get involved or at
least be able to see firsthandsome of these differences in in
(11:21):
production.
I think that's probably.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I like what you said because that's that's one of the
interesting things, at least inmy opinion, and and what I've
learned that there's not a lotof species out there, there's
not a lot of animals out therethat can adjust to a lot of
diversity.
You know they're, they'rereally specific to where they
are or where they start out,right and they're whether you
want to call it biosphere orwherever they're biomer or just
(11:44):
their their home range.
But it's interesting to see,you know guys working cows in
Washington state and then guysworking them in Louisiana and
they've got 50 head on on 10acres, you know, and the grass
is up to your waist and inWashington they're putting 50
head on, you know 700 acres,trying to find enough for them.
(12:05):
But something else you saidthat I was, I thought was kind
of a I don't know what peoplecall them nowadays like a buzz,
a buzz phrase or a buzz word ishow you said.
You know you're, you're afeedlot guy, a feeding guy,
which is really unique becauseyou also talk about and I hope
you can maybe we can get you toexpand just a little bit on why
(12:28):
you talk about animal welfare,because I don't think a lot of
people associate feed yard guyswith animal welfare.
They don't like to anyway, butthey 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 welfarethat turns your gears?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Well, of course, remember, I love beef, I love
the beef industry and I want tosee it succeed.
And I understand that there aresome people that are concerned
about how cattle are cared forin feedlots and I like a good
case stator.
I'm a big fan of Bill Snyderand one of his mantras that he
(13:10):
preached to all his players isthat do a little bit better
today than you did yesterday,and that's kind of.
I've adopted that mantra myselfand you know it's not unique to
Coach Snyder.
I just like to give him creditfor it.
But yeah, but so that's that'skind of what got me into it.
(13:35):
I've kind of and this is goingto sound like I'm tooting my own
horn but I've kind of alwayshad a knack for just for animal
handling and I can see ways thatwe can do things better.
I see things that we are doingand if I don't like them I try
(13:55):
to change them, and so that'swhat kind of what got me going
in the animal welfare direction.
You know some of the things.
Like if we look at where I wasprimarily practicing there in
Kansas, it's a fairly dry areaand that's the reason a lot of
(14:20):
cattle are fed there is becausewe don't have to deal with with
mud as a rule, yeah.
And I think by virtue of thefact that we have that dry area,
we kind of gotten away frombedding cattle and we figure
(14:44):
that, okay, the soil's dry, thepen's dry, and and so they got a
dry place to lay down, let'snot worry about bedding.
But it's pretty amazing, andthat's one of the first things I
noticed was when we put beddingout, those calves that were
laying on that dry dirt wouldget up and come over and lay in
that bedding.
And another thing when this iswhen I was in in in Colorado, we
(15:13):
had a processing crew and acustom processing crew that
worked at that yard and theywere a good processing crew but
they had several electric prodsand actually the feed yard owned
the prods and they had the longwands on them and they were
(15:39):
always breaking the wands andthey were always running out of
of batteries.
And so I was kind of in chargeof of making getting cattle to
that crew and everything and andarranging getting all the
vaccines up there that theyneeded to administer and that
sort of thing.
And one day they told me, doc,we gotta, we need, we need a
(16:03):
couple of new wands for theelectric prods and we're out of
batteries.
And so I ran into the healthstore not really thinking
anything of it, and, as it turnsout, the animal health store
had just one foot long wands.
That's all they had.
They were out of the the longerwands and so they needed them.
(16:23):
So I bought them and I broughtthem out there, and the crew
wasn't very happy, I feel like.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I know where this is going, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And.
But I said, well, it's whatyou've got to deal with.
And so what we found out therewas that, of course, the shorter
wand was harder to break.
They weren't sticking it inplaces that didn't need to go,
and the other thing was they hadto get close to the cattle to
to move them.
And so not only did we quitbreaking wands, but our battery,
(16:58):
our electric prod battery billjust dropped through the floor
and they just weren't using theelectric prods as much because
they had to actually move to thecattle, and as they got close
to the cattle, the cattlewouldn't move without them.
And so that really struck achord with me and that's really
(17:19):
what put me on the road tolooking at things that we can do
better as far as animal welfareis concerned.
And then when I joined I'lljust say the name, the the went
on staff with that, with ourlargest cattle feeding client.
It's a cattle empire.
When I joined them, that wasone of their focuses too.
(17:39):
They knew I had an interest inanimal welfare and they wanted
their crews to be focused onanimal welfare, and so that was
that was part of my majorresponsibilities was getting
everybody up to snuff on cattlehandling and that sort of thing,
and it took.
It took a little bit ofconvincing to get these guys in,
(18:01):
and one of the first things wedid was we utilized the national
BQA welfare assessment, not anaudit.
It was an assessment at thattime To see where they were at,
yeah, and, and part of it wasthat.
You know, part of theassessment besides cattle
handling or besides the otherthings you saw in the yard, was
(18:24):
cattle handling, and so we'dwatch them put a hundred head
cattle through the chute andyou'd record how many times they
did use an electric prod, howmany, how many times the cattle
vocalized how many of themjumped out of the squeeze chute
those sorts of things Ran out ofthe chute, yeah.
Okay, okay, yeah, and and ofcourse, those are all indicators
(18:49):
of of stress.
Yeah, so that assessmentbasically said you needed to use
an electric prod on less than10% of the cattle.
And when I told our crews thatthat was going to be their,
their benchmark, it'sinteresting because they really
(19:10):
didn't think they could possiblywork cattle in that way and do
it without.
Without maybe they were goingto exceed it by a long ways, or
or they weren't going to get anygetting a cattle to be
processed, and so we had threedifferent processing barns,
three different processing crews.
(19:30):
First time we did it.
They came close, but none ofthem essentially passed the
assessment.
They thought they werestruggling.
After they didn't pass it, thenI started working one-on-one
with each of the workers as muchas I could and showing them
better cattle handlingtechniques.
(19:51):
Then the second time, just aweek or so later, they passed it
with flying colors.
We did that assessment monthlyfor six or eight months and then
we started going quarterly.
The crews took it as achallenge.
(20:12):
When they figured out that theycould work cattle without
overusing the electric prod,then it became easier for them
because they enjoyed their workmore.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Everyone is stressed about it, angry about it,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Anger is a big thing.
Yeah, so two or three percentwas tops, is all they'd used
electric prod on.
It got to where I would goassess crews on a quarterly
basis and we might go three orfour assessments and not one of
(20:56):
the crews would use the electricprod even once.
Yeah, they got that good at it.
There were some changes to thefacilities we made to try to
make it better.
We had in credit cattle empirein the Brown family for spending
the money.
We got away from the circularsweeps and the snakes and we
(21:19):
went to Bud boxes with opensides.
I like that.
Yeah, I had nothing against thecircular sweeps and the curve
valley ways.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
But if you get a guy who knows how to use a box.
Absolutely, it's quick.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
There's some training there.
As I end, temple Grandin hassaid this herself.
When she designed those, herinitial goal was to and this
isn't her words, but shebasically wanted to make them
idiot proof that anybody canwork cattle through them and
that's just not possible.
Yeah, and she knows that.
She said that.
(21:57):
But with the Bud box it doesrequire a little thinking, a
little bit of manipulation.
A little bit of step, yeah, andthe guys, those crews, picked up
on that so quick.
Once they understood theprinciple of it, they picked up
(22:17):
on it really quick and thecattle were calmer, and that's
another thing.
When I first started workingwith them and before we started
redesigning our facilities, Iwas working with one particular
crew and instead of filling upthe tub which is a big mistake,
(22:42):
everybody wants to fill that tubup and use it as a holding pen.
I just started having thembring in just six or eight at a
time and go right into thealleyway and then the sweep gate
.
The only time it stopped iswhen it was open.
So when you started pushing itshut, as soon as the last calf
went into the alleyway youopened it back up and got a few
(23:06):
more.
It meant a little more walking,but when we got done with that
pen of cattle, the implantercame and thanked me for training
, for working with that crew.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I'm getting myself beat up all the time.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It made his job so much easier.
They come in hot into the shoe.
Absolutely, we're throwingtheir heads around and that sort
of thing.
So now it's, and when you seethose kind of changes,
differences, improvements thatcan be made, it makes your job
worthwhile.
(23:40):
Oh yeah, it feels like you'veaccomplished something.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Well, that's large scale.
Impact on that too, because incollege when I did animal
science.
I thought my reproduction classand anatomy class.
I really enjoyed them and Ithought they were going to be
the most fun.
But probably the most fun classI had is I took animal handling
and behavior at BYU, idaho, andthat was I remember calling my
(24:05):
friends, calling my parents andsaying you won't believe we
loaded bulls on a trailer,yearling bulls, and they stayed
there with the door open andlearning how to work a butt box.
And probably the mostsignificant thing that I learned
was I came away from workingcows clean and I wasn't tired
(24:26):
and I wasn't angry.
And I remember the professorused to say the first word out
of almost every cattle guy'smouth when something goes wrong
is dumb cow.
He says do you really thinkit's the cow's fault?
I mean, you spend more timetraining the people but once
they get it, the cows even liketoday out there, having seen it
(24:47):
done before, you'd notice thatman, 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 asudden there's four standing.
Well, only a couple of themleave.
They learn a lot quicker thanwe do where the pressure is, and
so I've always thought that'sreally an impressive thing to
(25:08):
realize, but it's probably thehardest thing to do is implement
it with the guys that actuallyhave to do it on the ground.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I would agree, and you mentioned that dumb cow
thing and I've got a talk I'veactually given it here at some
of these stockmanship andstewardship before and it's what
I call common cattle handlingmistakes and it's just a list of
silly things that we do and wedon't really even think about
them.
But I always finish up thattalk saying that most of our
(25:39):
problems with cattle handlingare not due to stupid cattle and
I stop right there, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
And then people figure out the rest.
Yeah, yeah, that's true, and Ithink I would say probably the
number one reason behind that isthat we've all been trained and
I like to think of myself as, Iguess, a progressive cattle guy
, and my dad as well but I thinkwe were all trained in that
Hurry up, get this job done,let's go before the sun's down
(26:09):
and that translated into a lotof sitting behind all the cows,
pushing them and prodding them,and I remember my professor used
to say you could make this towhere you could just sit on your
horse and eat a sandwich.
The cows will start doing it ifyou'll let them learn.
And that initial patiencebecause the breed of people that
(26:29):
we are just don't naturallycome by a lot of patience and
going off what you said.
I think there's a lot ofresearch that we've done in
different fields as far asthings that translate into
dollar bills, like heat stress,dollar bills loss or feeds, tons
of feeds but cattle handlingtranslates into dollar bills
(26:52):
just as much, absolutely, asanything else.
Is there anything that you'veseen that specifically on the
production side, where you cansay it would be hard for me to
put some really good scientificdata behind it.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
But when it comes to cattle handling and you've got a
crew that understands how to doit, with a minimal amount of
stress, with a minimal amount ofelectric prodding and that sort
of thing, and the cattle exitthe chute at a walker, at the
most to trot, and then theybreak into a walk.
(27:31):
As that became more and more ofa norm for us, we could see, I
felt like I could see the healthof the cattle improve.
And the other end of it isespecially when you're, for
(27:54):
instance, you get in some lightcalves and they might get a
couple implants while they're atthe feed yard where they need
to get run through the chuteagain.
If you handle and write thatfirst time, that second time
through the chute, it's going tobe so much easier.
And so and the vice versa istrue as well If you mess it up
(28:17):
the first time, it gets harder.
So yeah, as far as the truedollars and cents, I can't put a
dollar figure on it, but Iguess the dollar figure is.
It's just the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It is the right thing to do and I agree with you when
you talk about some of thecosts, especially ranchers.
But feed yard guys and dairyguys go through there's more
costs than just feeding cows,even though that's the biggest
cost broken equipment you goeasy on your equipment.
You go easy on your crew.
You're not sending guys to thehospital.
(28:51):
You're not buying a new chuteor buying new panels.
What are those things add up?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And that's another thing is the more we stressed
good animal welfare, good cattlehandling, et cetera, the our
employee turnover rate dropped.
Yeah, they like their job, yeah, they enjoyed it and they
stayed on and they were justhappy they were just happier
(29:22):
workers Instead of thinking thatthey had to get so many cattle.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Best of me a day.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, they were stressed, and that's another
thing.
After we kind of got everybodyschooled and trained and they
accepted it and put it to work.
And then I put a lot of effortinto it, but so did they.
They put a lot of effort intolearning.
But there was one time a clientcustomer came by.
(29:54):
A feeding customer came by andhe wanted to see this bud box
system work, because at thattime it was still a fairly novel
idea.
So we went in and he watched uswork those cattle and of course
we'd taken the hydraulic pumpoff the chute and put it outside
so it was quiet in there.
(30:17):
The guys weren't yelling at thecattle.
That's another thing that Istress.
You don't yell.
There were no stock whipsPeople.
They carried flags or paddleand I'm not even a big fan of
the paddle, but the electricprod was there but it was hung
on a hook and the cattle weregoing through and the workers
(30:40):
could have a conversation, likeyou and I were having, and while
we were working cattle and theyweren't having to yell at each
other and the customer that wasthere to watch it, he said this
is really nice, but he says I'vegot to work cattle faster than
this.
And I said well, how fast doyou think you've got to work
(31:02):
cattle?
And he says, well, I got to atleast do 120 head an hour.
And I said you start counting.
And we were working them at 150head an hour.
It was just that quiet.
And just the fact that we werequiet and the guys were calm and
the cattle were calm, he didn'tthink there was any way we were
(31:23):
working cattle quickly.
They were going fast.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Guys don't realize how much time gets wasted and
beaten from behind.
We're yelling at your guys.
Or then you get badrelationships on your feed lots
where guys don't like the bossbecause he's making them.
There's a lot that gets blamedon the cow and it's just not
that way, getting first off theowner to accept it and then the
(31:50):
other guys just say, ok, we'regoing to work at this Because it
does take work.
I mean sometimes, especiallywhen you're working a bed box,
or if you get into a little bitof open area and you're taking
too quick of a step or one steptoo many or something, and
that's frustrating itself, butman, it's gratifying once you
(32:11):
get there.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Absolutely, and to me it's fun.
I mean, if I could sit there, Icould have fun all day putting
cattle through a bud box intothe alleyway, just I would enjoy
doing that.
Just get flow cattle, yep, yep,and just figuring out what the
(32:35):
moves I need to make, thepressure I need to put on them,
and that sort of thing I couldenjoy doing that all day long.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
You know, I think probably one of the invitations
I would extend some of thebecause I've thought this.
After I took that class Ithought, you know, no one's
going to want to do this, noone's going to want to take this
time, and it's really not thatmuch.
That's the first thing.
It's not that much time.
It's just effort and if you putthat much effort into cussing
out a cow, you can learnsomething you know.
(33:05):
But anyone that thinks that acow, I guess and correct me if
I'm wrong, but as you repeatthis, especially with your same
herd throughout the year, youstart training your herd, you
start training your feedlot, thecows start to learn it, and I
think some people don't thinkthat's possible and I guess the
invitation I always thought waswe ought to just invite them to
(33:25):
a dairy Because you think cowscan't be trained Absolutely.
Those cows don't hardly gettouched.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, Well, and I look back on my, when I was
growing up, we, our family, weAI'd our cow herd and we'd they
were out on pasture and it is abeef herd and we raised horses.
So we'd saddle our horses everynight and go out, gather the
(33:51):
cows, bring them in heat detectfor an hour and then let them
out, and then we do same thingin the morning.
Mm-hmm, and after three, fourdays of that, those cows that
see us come out of a barn withour horses and they just pick up
and start walking, Stop comingin.
Yeah, and you're exactly right.
(34:12):
You know.
I mentioned that.
Common cattle handling mistakesthat I talk that I like to give.
One of them is what I call thesifter and that's the guy that
he needs five-headed cattle togo into the alleyway but he
brings 30 because he's justgoing to let 25 of them slip by
(34:33):
and he hopes he has five left toget into the alleyway when he
gets up there and what happensthere is those cattle learn that
they can't escape.
They messes up the othersAbsolutely and by the time he
gets done, working the group ofcattle and this is especially
bad in a cow herd, like youmentioned whether year after
(34:55):
year those cows get sifted.
You know they've escaped somany times that when they get to
the last 20, 30, maybe even 40head, they get on the fight,
because I got away last time andnow I've got to get in there
and cattle start jumping fences,People start getting hurt.
(35:17):
That sort of thing occurs whenbut you've trained them to do
that.
And the bad part about it iswhen you tell that sifter that
he needs to run the brandingiron and you put someone else
back there.
That's a good cattle handler.
(35:38):
He's got to retrain that herdand it's going to take a while.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And pretty good chance he might get here.
I can't tell you how many timesI've been out there, you know,
like when we would preg checkfor different ranchers and a cow
would come through and you know, like a six or eight year old
cow and he goes, oh, this oldrank thing.
And you know they developedthat little relationship over
the years.
They know, and it's just funnyhearing you say that because
(36:06):
they know that cow and that cowknows them.
You know, and so I guess youknow we tend to not think of
cows as intelligent beings, butreally they will learn what to
do and what not to do.
But they'll also learn at thesame time what's easy.
You know, and if we make, likethey said today, if we make the
(36:29):
easy things or whatever the butwe need them to do easy, then a
lot more can be accomplished.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
That's impressive.
So I guess, then, my otherquestion is do you do you like
where you're at now?
Are you happy at this stage?
Is there more that you'rewaiting to do, or do you feel
like you've hit the groove?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Well, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.
I'm enjoying the opportunitiesI've got.
You know, I'm 60 years old, butI, I still want to be effective
, and so do I feel like I'm done.
No, I still want to.
(37:17):
I still want to just like, justlike.
I'm just like.
I'm just like.
I'm just like my favoritefootball coach, bill Snyder.
I still want to get a littlebetter, a bit better every day.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
So do you so kind of leading into this question then
is what's the what's your thingright now?
I mean, I know, I know theanimal handling, the animal
welfare thing.
Is there anything in specificwhere you're putting a lot of
effort into right now?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Well, I think I really want to continue working
in the animal welfare front andyou know, and I'm pretty
passionate about antimicrobialstewardship and food safety.
Those are probably my threemain passions and you know, one
(38:04):
of the one of the concerns Ihave, speaking frankly, is is
the the what appears to be afairly widespread use of darts,
and I I understand the animalwelfare aspect of that, because
(38:24):
if the calf's lame and and heneeds an antibiotic and you
don't have facilities close andyou don't want to drive him a
mile, on a lame foot.
I get that, but I don't think itshould be the primary.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
The go to yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, the immediate thing and I think there's some
some of my concerns there alsohas to do with with
antimicrobial stewardship orantibiotic stewardship.
Those darts can only hold somuch volume, and so I'm fairly
convinced that a lot of us aremaking our antibiotic decisions
not on what might be the besttreatment for that animal, but
(39:05):
what will fit in that dart.
That's a good point.
I haven't thought about thatyet, and so that that's a that's
a concern I have.
But by the same token, the, thedart gun, is, is a handy tool.
It really is.
I just and and the other concern, that is, I was around when BQA
(39:30):
was first being developed and Igrew up giving injections in
the hip of cows and in the hipof calves, and because that's
where you did it, yeah, that'swhere you did it.
And one of my concerns with the, with the darts, is that we're
not going to be, we're going tostart finding more injection
(39:51):
site lesions left over from fromdark guns, yep, yep, cause we
don't hit in the right place,either accidentally or on
purpose, because that, that hindquarter is a pretty big target
and it's pretty convenient.
And, and so I'm, I'm afraidthat's.
My fear is that we'll startseeing more injection site
(40:12):
lesions at slaughter from that.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, which translates into some not good I
mean just like you're sayinglesions that people are seeing
at the slaughterhouse and that'slost money and and, frankly,
doesn't look good in the publicside.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Um so, uh, is that, is that more of a problem?
Just lack of facilities, whereyou see guys using those a lot,
or just I don't?
I don't want to call peoplelazy, I don't, right.
Is it a thing where it's like,well, this is just easier, right
?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
In some instances I think it is just easier Um the
uh.
But you know you get out herein this country where we're at,
where it's big open range andand uh, uh, you know it's going
to take an effort.
Um, of course, here you'reprobably going to be a little
more apt to find uh cowboys thatcan rope the calf and treat it
(41:10):
properly, or I guess I shouldsay treat it with a syringe as
opposed to a dart.
You get further east there'sthere's some good cowboys there,
but there are fewer and fartherbetween and uh, and I'm afraid
that's where a lot of it is isoccurring.
Um, you just can't find thepeople to uh, to uh that can go
(41:32):
out and rope a calf or, for thatmatter, even uh guide a calf in
, use a horse and guide a calfinto a facility to capture him
and and treat him thetraditional way.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I guess I should say Hmm.
Yeah, that would be.
That would be interestingbecause, honestly, that's the I
know.
I know the guys have been usingdart guns, but I'd never had
thought about that, especiallylike the dosage concern.
Um, I mean, I don't knowanything about what the darts,
who makes the darts or anythinglike that, but I wouldn't assume
(42:03):
there's a wide variety of dartsavailable to everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I think it was about three companies that that make
them Um.
One of them is, uh, is is morepopular than the other two, I'd
say.
But you know, um, um, when Iwas with with cattle empire, we,
uh, we were notified that bythe packer that there was a dart
in one of our carcasses.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Oh, it went all the way into the skin under the skin
.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
And uh, um, and so we didn't use darts.
And so the customer that ownedthat heifer, I called him up and
I said are you using darts downthere?
He said no, I don't use darts,I don't want to allow him on the
place.
And of course he Purchased thisgroup of heifers and then
(42:58):
grazed him on his ranch for acouple months before he sent him
to the feed yard, and so thatdart had been in that heifer
from the time she was a babycalf.
Oh, my word and and so you know,and that it's metal.
Yeah and so that's a daldoratedmeat, yep, and so, and and you
(43:18):
talk to the packing plant.
Guys, and if you go into apacking plant and talk to the
shift manager or something, anda Lot of times you say, hey,
what's it?
Are you having finding any dartsin?
And the one time I did it theguy pulled his desk drawer open
(43:40):
there seven or eight darts, ohmy gosh, that he'd found.
And so it's it's.
It's not, I guess, a hugeepidemic yet, but it is.
I think it's a, I think itcould be a potential problem.
The main thing you got to do ifyou're gonna use that equipment
is, if you shoot a dart, yougot to find the Dirt, find the
(44:00):
dog.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Yeah, I hate saying people need to be educated
because people want to beeducated, but you know, having
having a tool like thisavailable where someone can hear
someone's story and you knowthere are there are those things
.
I think back to what you saidat the beginning of have you
climbing up that tower andseeing all those cattle?
You know I remember as myselfas a kid, going out, you know,
(44:22):
in Little League and in themorning, seeing a baseball field
, and that was, that was mydream.
You know that was, and it stuckwith me to this day.
I can still think about it.
So, living out your passion, Imean, you can't ask for anything
more than a human life yeah, soit's been really good to have
you here and you know you're anexcellent resource, not only for
Merck but for for other people,and I Appreciate your time.
(44:48):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yep, I Glad to do it, and I'll just finish by saying
and repeating Bill Snyder, do alittle bit better today than you
did yesterday.
Absolutely, absolutely Well,thank you.
You bet, you bet, you bet.
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