The Veterinary Services Vision and Science Grassroots Team produced a "Where the Rubber Meets the Road Webinar".
This webinar discussed the Grassroots microgrant project by Dr. LewAnn Schneider.
Each year in December, Kansas Department of Agriculture Division of Animal Health (KDA-DAH) organizes and hosts a multi-agency functional multiple day Foreign Animal Disease exercise. These exercise scenarios involve simulated depopulation efforts; however, proper response planning often requires estimation of critical procedures. For several years, the Euthanasia and Disposal Branch in this annual emergency preparedness exercise has proposed injecting feedlot cattle in the alley or chute with an affordable, available, FDA-approved sedative (Xylazine) and staging beef animals in pens or alleys in small groups, then euthanizing after they are recumbent. Following euthanasia in small groups, carcasses are then moved for disposal. Within large depopulation operations, the timing and effectiveness of cattle sedation processing is critical to all other aspects of euthanasia and disposal. Significant uncertainty exists in the depopulation process and validation of critical elements (i.e., the sedation process) are needed before continued response plans rest on this sedation-before-euthanasia model.
Dr. LewAnn Schneider discussed several unanswered questions:
Will beef animals respond as theorized?
What dosage is needed? With large feedlots in Kansas and several other states, the dose needs to be as low as reasonable to maximize the number of cattle injected.
Is this a realistic option in a disease outbreak?