Feed yard test

This morning Tara and I drove up to Ithaca (about 45 min north of EL for those of you unfamiliar with MI)  to meet Dr. Schwarck and test 100+ head. The owner was pretty nice and we had another state employee, Ryan, as well as a USDA employee, Vera, around to help us out. We all worked really well together and the whole day was as efficient as we could have possibly made it.

The whole reason for doing a whole herd test (WHT) on this premise was because he supposedly bought some "exposed" cattle from someone, so today's test was known as a "trace." If anything is found, the farm will be quarantined, IFN gammas would be taken, and until results came back, he would remain under quarantine.

Anyway, the first thing that was said to us females upon walking up to the farm was "you know you're going to get dirty today, right?" I replied back with "yeah, we planned on it..." My nerves are shot with many farmers thinking a girl can't possibly do the job, so I was ready for a good day with lots of practice! haha

While Dr. Schwarck set up the gates and chute the way he liked, Tara and I unpacked syringes and filled with 0.1cc of tuberculin. Once that was done, I operated the head gate, ear tagged, and scanned all day while Tara recorded RFIDs and premise tag numbers in the PDA for each cow. While we took care of business on the head end, Dr. Schwarck was doing injections in the caudal fold, Vera was pushing cows, and Ryan and the owner were maneuvering cows, 3 at a time, into the pen and through the chute.

In sum, we went through ~155 cattle in about 3 hours with breaks...not bad! haha....go back for readings on Thursday.