There is little glamour in being a chicken veterinarian.
When Alberta Agriculture’s pathology laboratories were closed to
routine pathology examinations, Alberta poultry producers had few
chicken vets to choose from.
While there were lots of veterinarians specializing in cattle or hogs
to take over post mortem procedures, few vets were experts in chicken
health.
Instead, the four poultry boards – chickens, eggs, hatching eggs and
turkey – jointly funded a full-time poultry pathology position with the
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provincial government.
“Effectively, the industry has just grabbed hold of this thing and made
it work,” said Lloyd Johnston, general manager of Alberta Chicken
Producers.
“The four boards decided in the interest of their producer members they
needed to have something there, so they went ahead and funded it.”
The boards pay for the pathologist’s salary and the government supplies
lab facilities and technical and support staff.
In return, the government has access to the data to help maintain the
province’s disease surveillance system.
Alberta’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is still
seeking a solution for its post mortem dilemma since government budget
cuts eliminated free post mortem examinations.
Alberta SPCA executive director Neil McDonald said the lack of autopsy
services hasn’t stopped the agency from getting convictions.
“If you have 10 alive animals that are in skin and bone condition, no
feed in evidence, and three or four carcasses there, it doesn’t take a
genius to figure out what they died from,” he said.
“You don’t have to have that technical kind of autopsy to get a
conviction. It’s better if you do, obviously.”
However, Gerald Ollis, Alberta’s chief provincial veterinarian,
wondered if the SPCA really needed the service.
“You had to question some of the post mortems that kept coming in,” he
said.
“The diagnosis was obvious.”
