Vets being replaced by Agricultural officiers in Meat Factory

greysides wrote: »

Large animal veterinary practice has three sources of income.

Clinical work.
State scheme work (TB and Brucellosis testing)
TVI work.

The percentage input of each of these will vary from practice to practice and area to area.

If one facet is gone a practice will be able to support less staff. Less staff means less vets on the ground during the busy times of the year.

Veterinary clinical work is seasonal, TVI and State work evens out the peaks and maintains the service at current levels.

In an effort to keep solvent it is likely that clinical fees will have to increase to a level comparible to the UK.

As numbers of large animal vets drop, distances travelled and time waiting for the response to a call will likely increase.



It is particularly gauling in the current financial crisis that if jobs are to be lost in an effort to save the country money that the result will only be yet more money being wasted.

A bit Irish really!

greysides wrote: »

The point I'm making is that even if cattle prices were to remain high that uneconomic differential may come into existence again due to a forced price rise at the other end of the swing.

Vets are well aware that increasing prices will decrease calls but there may well be no option. It may well be that it's necessary to have a chance of continuing. If the battle is lost then there's less coverage for when it's needed............ and all because the easy/expedient option rather than the best option was taken.

If coverage is lost there are more losers than just the vets concerned.

The outbreak of FMD in the UK was spotted by a vet doing TVI work in an abattoir. Luckily he did, it had gotten well out of hand already at that point. A few more days unnoticed and it could have made much more inroads into this country too. We were very lucky, very very lucky. It wasn't all due to the Dept's handling of the affair. Lady Luck was with us.

The TVI work done is important, most is not form-filling. It's ensuring the finished carcase is clean and the meat fit to be consumed. A fact that's easily lost sight of during a long, busy stint with high temperature and humidity wearing you down.

Vets act as an independent observer on the killing floor. If carcases or part-carcases are condemned it's for good reason and not at the whim of a factory operative.

In a business where quantity, rather than quality, is the desired route to profitability, despite publicity to the contrary, the factory operators need some restraint in the speed and condition they produce FOOD in.

While AOs have been trained to do the job, how can that compare with 5 years in college and daily experience of animal disease and knowing how disease works?
It has been suggested that it may take several AOs to replace one vet due to the way the civil service works.

As well as saving, or not saving, money, the decision needs to be looked at in the light of the confidence that having vets rather than lay inspectors can give to foreign buyers. Ireland is export dependent.

A vet on the line is a better guarantee of a safe consumable product than any of the rubbish HACCP quality control and quality assured schemes the factories come up with.

I've seen inspections go through where the high-light of the tour was the reprinting of a label and the explanation of how they can trace everything back to the farm of origin.
Only one person on one inspection ever thought to look at the actual carcases. That person was a Rabbi. They inspect the meat killed for them themselves. Wise people.




If 'success rate' refers to caesars then I think the majority are successful. It will depend on state of play at the start of course.

Similarly, if 'success rate' means 'cure rate' then that also depends on the state of play at the start.

It's a kind of catch 22 that if you wait for the animal to improve without calling the vet then if you do lose that gamble the odds of success are lessened when you do make the call.
Also, the cost of drugs is going to be higher (longer course/heavier dose rate/more expensive drugs used) for an animal with a larger risk of dying.

While it's perhaps a little outside the scope of this economic discussion, there's also ethical and welfare considerations when an animal is sick or unable to calve.
It's a risk of keeping animals that some will cost you more than they're worth. If that number gets great enough to compromise the finances of the business, it's a signal that another business may better suit the individual.
For the good stockman its not going to be make or break, under normal conditions.

I think the box of cartridges option is appropriate in certain situations but doing nothing and just waiting for the animal to die isn't.