California Animal Health Lab Gets a Major Upgrade
A California animal health laboratory has undergone a major expansion, with a new facility nearly nine times larger than the one it replaced.
The California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory in Turlock began operating in July and was officially dedicated November 6. And the improvements go well beyond additional space.
For years, the Turlock location only handled poultry. If you needed a postmortem examination on a cow, horse, pig or goat, that meant traveling to another laboratory in Davis or Tulare.
Now, Turlock can handle those animals, too, along with a much wider range of diagnostic testing.
But this is bigger than convenience for local producers.
Turlock is one of four laboratories in California's statewide animal health and food safety network, operated by UC Davis in partnership with the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
These labs help detect and track diseases, including bird flu, and provide information that's critical when outbreaks occur.
So while Central Valley producers gain easier access to testing, California gains more capacity to identify animal health threats and respond when problems arise.
