08/22/07 Portable vet

There's a new veterinarian and cowboy helper in town. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll tell you about it right after this. Through the years veterinarians and cowboys in the feedlots and on the ranches have used stomach boluses as a way to administer time released medicines or even minerals to cattle as a treatment or preventative measure. Now there is a new bolus that monitors the body temperature of cattle to help detect sickness early by recording any rise in the animal's temperature. Inventor, Bill Ardrey's TechTrol electronic boluses and receivers are the new items that accomplish this breakthrough. The boluses are programmed to send information at pre-determined intervals that are read by a scanner at a maximum distance of 300 feet. An additional benefit is the boluses each have their own number that can be used for identification of individual animals. When testing the new technology, researchers found high temperature readings in healthy cattle and assumed a malfunction but retesting again with new equipment found the high temperature was caused by the stress of the animal being moved up the working chute to receive vaccinations. Ardrey found nearly 90 percent of the cattle in one Nebraska feedlot showed a temperature rise during the vaccination process. This will help feedlot personnel find ways to relieve this stress. I always wondered why I felt so hot moving up the line to get my vaccinations in grade school, it was only stress not fear. I feel redeemed. I'm Jeff Keane. Western Farmer Stockman August 2007