Ok, this seems like the best place to share my dilemma and ask for advice, based on the above topic. A little background- VMRCVM does curriculum tracking, meaning small animal, food animal, equine, public/corporate, and you can also track mixed animal concentrating in SA/FA or SA/equine. Basically we have a core curriculum to get ready for the NAVLE and then we take additional classes in our area of most interest. I want to track mixed-SA/FA. I don't think I would ever work in FA industry, but I ideally want to work in a mixed rural practice. And just to be clear-I am not a vegetarian or a member of any animal rights groups. Oh, and I'm a city girl, but I wanna be country girl.
That being said, I do have strong feelings and opinions regarding animal welfare and the role of veterinarians in protecting animal welfare, especially in food animal operations. One of the reasons that I want track mixed is so that I can gain exposure to the food animal industry. Public perception can often be skewed by misinformation, and I know that I am coming into vet school with some incorrect preconceived notions on the handling of food animals. While in my (admittedly limited) time here so far, I have had some of those notions challenged and I am pleased to say that the food animal community does really seem to care for the welfare and well being of the animals in their care. Not just the vets, but the farm managers, workers and the classmates of mine that grew up on production farms.
However, I have had some of my ideas reinforced. For example-I was assigned in a Large Animal Husbandry class a debate topic regarding the use of gestation crates for pregnant sows. I know that the US is essentially phasing these out (and IMO that is a good thing). The research that I did into pig welfare to prepare for this assignment led me to the European Union and their (again IMO) progressive views on pig husbandry. The same week that I completed that research, I participated in some piglet processing. Y'all probably
know that this involves ear notching, teeth removal and tail docking. I'm under the impression that this is standard procedure for production pigs in the US. Well, everything I read regarding these procedures (from research compiled in the EU by experts in veterinary med and animal husbandry-used to form the basis of the EU laws on pig husbandry) states that these procedures are painful to the pigs when done without pain meds, and that while they are considered necessary in intensive pig operations, better husbandry can alleviate the problems that these procedures are implemented to fix (tail biting, piglet skull injury caused by other piglets).
So...I couldn't do it-I didn't participate. I just couldn't cut the tail off of those fully awake, screaming, adorable pigs. (This was a voluntary wet lab, not part of the curriculum) The farm manager was awesome and we had a great conversation about the whole thing. He was very interested in educating us and he was aware of/receptive to the research coming out of Europe, while taking a financially realistic viewpoint of implementing that type of husbandry. None of my fellow classmates judged me for not doing it, and I don't judge them for doing it. I have been really bothered by the whole thing since-not just the husbandry practices, but my inability to participate.
Do y'all think that there is a place for me, for someone who holds progressive views on animal welfare, in the food animal industry? Or do I obviously not have what it takes?
Other thoughts on my above giant post? I'm really torn up about this....and as a city girl, no one in my life has any background to help me with this.
