Today's episode is brought to you by the University of Hawaii College of Tropical ag and human resources and the livestock extension group.
Unknown:Aloha and welcome to the livestock Wala'au a podcast aimed to provide educational support information, guidance and outreach to livestock stakeholders in Hawaii. We are your hosts Mele Oshiro
Shannon Sand:and Shannon sand. Today we're going
Unknown:to discuss herd health and biosecurity.
Shannon Sand:To do that we're going to introduce you to an amazing person and the veterinarian for you. Ah, Dr. Gennaio. Donnie,
Melelani Oshiro:doctor today with Donnie grew up in Wailuku Maui and is a graduate of UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. She is board certified veterinarian anatomic pathologist with experience working with a variety of animal species.
Shannon Sand:So with that intro Janae tell us a little bit about how you came to be the veterinarian for the University of Hawaii.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Okay, so it's kind of a long story that winds around. But you know, believe it or not, I went to vet school initially to become a feline practitioner, because I love cats, and I just wanted to play with cats all day. But when you go to vet school, they expose you to all the animal species. And that's where I learned that I actually really liked working with fish. Some of that might come from, you know, growing up in Hawaii, my dad was a fisherman, so you need to spend a lot of time, you know, in the ocean looking at fish. And I, I anyway, I was just really attracted to it. So in vet school, at least at UC Davis, they allow you to select a track for your fourth year. So you know, like a lot of people might pick small animal track food, animal track, large animal track, different things, but they were, they were kind enough to let me design my own track. So I ended up calling it something like fish health, and herd health. And it was basically a lot of fish health rotations, a lot of pathology thrown into that. And I did a bunch of large animal rotations, because that was the herd health component of it. And then I, I got kind of drawn into private, small animal practice, just because the money was really good. It was supposed to just be a summer job. But then I ended up staying for a couple of years. But I kind of quickly realized that it wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I went back to school, and I did a residency in anatomic pathology. And I worked in a diagnostic laboratory that focused on livestock and poultry. And, you know, I did refer to Cat Lady after all. Yeah, no, I was not entirely but I did have like my crazy cat clients of the side. That was kind of like the side hustle. Funny, I even picked up like a crazy rabbit lady. So yeah, there's all kinds. Yeah. Yeah, so you know, it was all I mean, it was just really fun. I got to do a lot of really interesting work. I loved being a pathologist, you know, working well, working on dead animals. And, you know, just trying to answer a lot of the questions, you know, whether it's disease related, sometimes it was forensics related, but you know, no matter what, it was always just super interesting. But I did want to move back home eventually. So I was lucky enough that there was jobs that opened up at a good time in my life. And I moved back at the end of 2006, for a job with the Department of Agriculture in the veterinary laboratory. Yeah, and, um, you know, in the vet lab, eat, you know, it was a bunch of lab work, but it was pathology work. And, you know, dead animals are owned by somebody. So I actually spent a lot of time I spent a lot of time talking to producers, and, you know, consulting with, you know, maybe their veterinarians, and, you know, we were doing troubleshooting. So that was really fun, you know, more probably more engaging than just the straight lab work. And around that time to maybe like a year or two later, the University of Hawaii needed in a animal diseases lecture from one of their courses. And so I did that for them. And then a couple of years after that they needed someone to teach anatomy. So I did that. And I just realized I've been teaching anatomy here for 10 years. But it wasn't until 2016, that the extension of that position in CTAHR opened up and I applied for it and I was really lucky to get it. It's kind of a no brainer position for me, because it's, it's everything that I like, there's all this outreach that I get to do with producers. There's enough farm stuff, there's lab stuff, I get to do the instruction with the students, you know, which is really rewarding. And yeah, so anyway, I call this like, seriously my dream job. I love it.
Melelani Oshiro:Yeah. So you're in, I guess, tell us more a little bit more about the animal science program there because you do work a lot with the pre vet students. And that's one of the things I think, you know, a lot of students here look for is some advice for those that want to go into a veterinarian career. What can you what kind of advice can you provide or suggest to those? Okay, so
Dr. Jenee Odani:I guess in about it. Yeah. So here's the shameless plug is they should become animal sciences majors. If you want to go to vet school, be an animal sciences major. But the real answer is you can major in whatever you want. If you want to be a vet, like my roommate in vet school, she was a piano nature. Yeah, like frills. She was counter major.
Shannon Sand:So I've heard that like, so when I was in like undergrad and grad school, like at the University of Florida. I was like, I had a lot of people that were aiming for vet school. And like, I have heard, it's harder to get into vet school than medical school, because there are much fewer, like, vet medicine, like universities or schools or colleges, whatever words today. But then there are actual, like medical schools, like you're much more likely to get into medical school than vet school.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Yeah, you know, I mean, it's a numbers game. And there is a shortage of sets. So the profession knows that. Yeah. I mean, like, everybody's scrambling, like, especially right now in COVID times, you know, because we're having trouble having people traveling, so we're not getting all the relief that's that we need coming to the islands. Yeah, it's really rough. And and it's a national problem. So it's not like, you know, there's an abundance of Sure. Yeah, it felt like we could just like bring them from somewhere else. Like, everybody's, everybody's struggling. So it's interesting. They, they know that there's a problem where there weren't enough veterinarians been graduated each year to meet the need. So there are several new schools that opened up like, you know, Arizona. Now, there's one in Long Island, you know, a bunch of different new schools are opening up, but it's still pretty selective. Yeah, but but I think it's mostly, you know, they, they need to be able to handle the math and science courses. So, you know, if I'm talking to kids in high school, or younger, you know, I tell them, like, do good in math and science. That's, that's like, the main thing. Your only job right now is just learn math and science. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, then, and then truly, they can major in whatever they want. Because the vet schools only care about what prerequisite courses you took. So even if you're a piano major, if you take biology, organic chemistry, biochemistry, you know, a handful of others, you can still apply. They don't, they don't care what your background is. But then they also want to make sure that you have a good understanding of what the profession is like. Because, you know, like, I told you, I wanted to be cat fed, and I wanted to play with cats all day, and totally not with practices like that not what it's like.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah, you're not gonna have every, you know, I spent many years as a vet tech prior to being with you age and you're not gonna have every cat in comes into office, it's gonna want to be cuddled and pet, you know, a lot of them will just kind of swap you in the face. So, yeah, but you know, I when Judy was applying, I remember I went to your seminar and whatnot. And you were here in Waimea. So I remember you coming in for that application as an extension, but I've ever seen all your stuff. And she's like, it's like CSI for the animals. She's like a forensic scientist is what it is, you know, all those diseases and stuff. So that was really, really cool.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, there's just so much to learn about diseases. And you know, like I said, I do try to help people out. If they have legal cases, or you know, like criminal cases even.
Shannon Sand:Yeah, yeah. Wow. So seeing all of the diseases and viruses that impact livestock and animals here in Hawaii must be important.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Yeah, there. I mean, the diseases that we see here in Hawaii, are, you know, pretty similar to what we see elsewhere in the United States. But there are some added maybe things that are just emphasized more or we have to manage them differently here in Hawaii. Like Malia and I are kind of working on a on a parasitology project. And exciting. Yeah, no, I mean, it's I think it's super exciting. The worms are pretty cute right under the microscope. We grow them up from little eggs, we hatch them, we love them. But Archer them Yeah. And, and I think you know, so in Hawaii, we have this tropical climate. So you know, the animals you know, get exposed to the parasites. They poop them out maybe in larger numbers in the mainland. If they have like a good frost. A lot of those guys will die. Yeah, but we don't have that here. So I do think that we just tend to build up higher loads and our animals have to adapt to it or they get sick and you know, they might die.
Unknown:Yeah, parasites is such a huge, huge topic. And I think one day we'll have Janae back to talk about those kinds of things. Because it is such a huge thing in small ruminants, and we can spend a lot of time talking about it. But there's all so many different strategies I think producers can use in regards to improving their herd health. So, you know, is there anything more that I guess we talked about, you know, herd health and whatnot. So Jimmy, you want to, I guess, expand a little bit about herd health here and livestock in Hawaii?
Dr. Jenee Odani:Yeah, so I talked about herd health a lot to my students, you know, especially because we have to kind of move away from treating the one sick animal, we have to think about treating the whole herd. Yeah, think bigger picture. And, you know, so it kind of always, I feel like you need to have a plan. So that you know, what you're doing it every step of the way, at every stage of the animal or the production cycle, you kind of need to know what your goals are. Because some people are trying to crank out the maximum amount of production that they can. And other people, you know, they're just happy if they don't lose money while they're doing it. Right. And, and, you know, and there's different goals, right? It's like some people, it's, it's really business. So they want that, that production of whatever commodity it is, to
Shannon Sand:maximize your profit or Yeah, maximizing the quality of the like, if it's, if it's a like a meat animal, I would say meat or like, even like dairy, because I know, there's a few dairy. Yeah, it's like she, she she that are used for dairy and stuff here. So yeah, so
Dr. Jenee Odani:there. Yeah, there's all kinds of I mean, that doesn't need herd health. I mean, here in Hawaii, we raised like, everything for beef cattle, to like shrimp and the like,
Shannon Sand:are so vast, it's a huge topic. Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Jenee Odani:But there are I mean, I would say, yeah, like a lot of common elements. But I do think, you know, like, that's kind of the first question is like, what are you? What are the variables? Yeah. Because you know, then then we kind of run into other things where some people are like, No, I need to do it completely natural. I can't use these kinds of treatments, or these kind of intervention. So
Shannon Sand:organic, it makes it makes a difference in their herd health plan to then right, because yeah, for sure. Exactly. Separate and like, yeah,
Dr. Jenee Odani:no, definitely. And then sometimes you don't even thinking about who they're marketing to. Right? Because then there's a whole bunch of other things that have to go into the plan that, you know, you might not have to deal with. So, yeah, so they have to, you know, like, really understand that. And, you know, most of our, you know, large commercial producers. I mean, they know what they're doing, but I do think like some with some newer, smaller scale producers, they haven't really thought about that, you know, what, like, what really are their priorities? Because, you know, you might not be able to have it all right,
Unknown:but exactly, yeah, exactly. Because her you know, herd size, I guess to say, right is another big thing and exactly what you're saying the smaller producers, their goals may be completely different from what somebody has. Yeah,
Dr. Jenee Odani:so yeah, exactly. Makes it Yeah. And along those lines, I mean, like the difference maybe between a herd health program, if you've got just a few animals versus, you know, large scale production, there's, there's things that we might recommend to, you know, a large producer, that's cost effective for them, that would make zero sense for a smaller
Shannon Sand:producer not nearly cost effective, because they don't have those economies of scale or size. Exactly. Oh,
Unknown:I understand that. Are you the Economist? Shannon, I would have never guessed
Shannon Sand:that I understood. That's
Unknown:exactly right. And I guess that's a good way to look at it. Right, creating a well planned out herd health management plan is an investment, you know, it is a big investment to your herd, whether you have five animals or 500 animals. So, yeah, and the
Dr. Jenee Odani:other way to look at it is, I mean, the herd health programs, you know, herd health management programs or whatever, but really, it's preventive. You know, management. So, you know, and this is like, yeah, the economy thing. It's like, the cost of the vaccine versus the cost of a dead animal. Right, exactly.
Shannon Sand:Yeah, well, then it's, I feel like it's a whole different, like it's additional impact because I think Melis got chickens. And mele was vaccinating her chickens or D warming them. I forget which one and like it was vaccinated. Yes. So I was like, and like she was she was ordering the, the vaccine and like millet, you can talk more about it than I can, but like just the cost of getting it here. It wasn't
Dr. Jenee Odani:it was the cost of wasn't it like a 10,000 dose bottle or something?
Unknown:Yeah, exactly. Right. And they don't you know, you don't you've you got 20 Birds or something like that, but the dose is in the 1000s. And you have to that's only we really get it right. Yeah, you pay you pay probably three or four times the amount just to ship it here. Then it costs for the actual file that you're Yeah. So Oh, no, Emma
Shannon Sand:did shelflife that's the other Exactly. No, exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Jenee Odani:So one of the things that I've kind of always wished for was, you know, if we could, well, maybe not we but you know, the producer groups could set up like a hui, where, like a co op somebody Yeah, like bring Yeah, like a club like, you guys plan it will all vaccinate kind of around the same time. We'll buy the bottle, we'll split it up. And then that way, nothing goes to waste.
Shannon Sand:Yeah, I mean, it'd be nice. So I wonder if there aren't like neighbors that just already do that. To some extent.
Dr. Jenee Odani:I think that they are. Yeah, yeah.
Shannon Sand:I mean, sure. It just makes so much sense to do it that way. But yeah, yeah.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Because, honestly, I do that with the cat vaccines. I buy, like the whole tray. And I give it my you know, like, I don't but I only have two cats. Yeah. Neighbors,
Shannon Sand:not at the threshold for cat.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Tray. Right? That Yeah. But then I'll do the neighbors. And you know, like, you know, like, yeah, I just let whoever you know, I felt like, Hey, I've got 14 doses left. You know, who wants some? Yeah,
Unknown:yeah. Yeah, we've done that with dog vaccines and stuff like that before, you know, and just kind of split it up. So. Yeah, make sense? Right. Do what you got to do. Yeah.
Shannon Sand:So it sounds like herd health plays a really big role in ensuring the long term wellness of our animals overall. Janae is shaking her head. Yes. For those that are listening.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Okay, I'm gonna say some things I know for sure, for sure it does. And I just think that if people have a well thought out plan, it was really just help them down the road, we can avoid a lot of problems. So,
Unknown:you know, there's so much more people moving and visiting here. Now in Hawaii, I think, you know, Hawaii has kind of become like, the safe zone with COVID. And stuff really have Yeah. So, you know, and we, you know, we continuously getting more invasive, you know, invasive species is always an important thing. But then we also think about biosecurity. Right. And how does that relate then now back to our herd health and management plans that people can build? You know, how is biosecurity play into that?
Dr. Jenee Odani:Yeah, so, you know, agritourism is a big deal. Right, huge, huge and from a biosecurity point of view. I cringe.
Shannon Sand:I can, because teaching someone to decontaminate before you go to visit the I'm just gonna sit again, I'm because we're livestock. I'm just gonna say the goats, the pigs or the chickens, and then like decontaminate before you leave, because if you go somewhere else's to someone else's farm, you might be taking some something with you. It is it is a concern, I would imagine.
Dr. Jenee Odani:So yeah. And then again, it goes back to well, what are your goals? Because if your goals are strictly production, you're you're not going to deal with that kind of stuff, you're gonna be like, no, no visitors, you know, closed completely. But there are ways to, you know, kind of mitigate the risks. So, we'll talk about, you know, like, disinfection protocols, training for personnel, and, you know, there are just certain activities that are really high risk versus others. You know, like, I'm just thinking for, like, the pigs, right? We, we cook the garbage that we feed them, but you need to specifically tell people, like, do not feed the pigs, any meat products, especially those that come from other countries. You know, and I just think that kind of, you know, education won't will go far. Yeah. But it's kind of cute. I mean, they even for me, maybe this should make my producers feel better. When I go to the mainland, and I travel, I actually bring a little pouch of dried Virkon. And I disinfect all my stuff, because I don't want to walk. Like I just imagined that I'm walking around in this building with all these other people, and I don't know where their boots have been. And I don't want to like walk around and walk around my hotel room, you know, like,
Unknown:exactly, exactly right. Is that just what you're gonna bring back? But then you gotta take it back to your hotel room? Because like, ah, yeah, I need that in there. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, I guess. So that's some of the key things, right. I mean, if somebody can just realize, I mean, one of the key things that they can change in their, in their farm to ensure that their buyers, what would you what would you tell them? They said, well, we don't have money to do this whole biosecurity plan, what's the simplest thing we can do? What would you tell them today?
Dr. Jenee Odani:You know, I guess. So we need to have like, kind of like a fencing and just an idea of what we're going to call like our protected zone. You know, like, what, what's in that safety zone. And then knowing that just try to keep a lid on what goes through it, you know, things that people can do that really doesn't cost anything, it's just having clothes that are farm specific. So in other words, clothes that don't leave the farm so like just a pair of boots that are always there, you know, a pair of coveralls or whatever that are always there. And those things just never go to another farm. They never go to the feed store. They never go anywhere else in art, right. And then you know, for like we we recommend this a lot to the swine producers who maybe do on farm sales. We tell them you know if the client if the customer wants to, you know, like look around the pens and Pick the one they want. You just have extra pairs of boots for them. And that, you know, that's pretty inexpensive. Right? So just, you know, just to be aware of like, what are the highest risk activities and do what you can to mitigate those?
Unknown:That makes sense. Good point. Yeah. Oh, and then the other thing,
Dr. Jenee Odani:oh, no good. Just kind of going back to maybe more the herd health aspect though. One thing that I would really recommend to, you know, all producers is keeping really good records. And with that comes animal identification. Because we want to be able to see like that animal over there. How old is it? Where did you get it from? Did she you know, like, how many kids does she have last year? Right? Things like that. You know, we want to just have really good records, and we're not guessing.
Unknown:Yeah, right. Right. That's really important. Yeah, record keeping is one of the key things. And then when you have a break in your little chain or whatnot of command, you know, or things that crossed over, you know, where it came from, and whatnot. Yeah,
Dr. Jenee Odani:exactly. And so simple things like, well, when you opened a new bag of feed, right, when you gave the vaccine, you know, things like that, just if it's written down, it makes things a lot easier.
Unknown:Yeah, it's almost like this whole contract or contact tracing that they do with COVID. Right? It's the same thing. It's like, we almost have to remember like, where we've been, and whatnot. So somebody says, you know, you kind of don't really think about it, but now you've got to think about a little bit more where you're going and, yeah,
Dr. Jenee Odani:ya know, for sure. And actually, I mean, with biosecurity, you know, the people who have the tight plans, that's one of the things that we ask is like, you need to have a visitor log, because you need to know who came. And that way, if something happened, then, you know, that's documents that you can either turn over to whoever's investigating, or you know, just call them up yourself and see like, hey, yeah, it's happened and you should watch out, right? Yeah.
Shannon Sand:So busy all the time.
Dr. Jenee Odani:I mean, with all the different things they do, I am but Yeah, everybody's busy. Everybody's busy.
Shannon Sand:That's awesome. Janae How are you able to accomplish so much coffee tea Mountain Dew?
Dr. Jenee Odani:Yeah, basically the Diet Mountain Dew? Yeah. I call it the beverage of champions. I can't live without it. And there's honest to God, a shortage on Oahu, Sam's Club and Costco are both out. I am cheap. I'm not gonna pay, you know, like Target prices for it.
Unknown:And we recycled Ginny's Mountain Dew bottles, I must tell you, because we've kept we I kept them and she's she's kept them for me, actually, for our parasite and larvae project.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Isn't that adorable? Right? We're gonna grow our little baby worms in my Mountain Dew bottle.
Unknown:So then we moved so quickly across a screen, we're not going to be able to see him. No.
Shannon Sand:That's right.
Unknown:Oh, well. So we want to say thanks to Janae make sure you to join our Facebook page. They'll let you h live slack extension group. If you haven't already, visit the U H. CTAHR. Extension website and livestock extension group YouTube channel that we'll have listed in the show notes for additional
Shannon Sand:information about this topic CNAs website listed in the show notes of the podcast and description box of our YouTube page. Thanks for listening to the livestock volatile.
Unknown:And before we go everyone make sure you show some love for the your favorite podcast by leaving us a review on Apple podcasts or one of those platforms that you use and stay tuned for next month's episode, where we'll be talking with Dr. Mark Thorne. So Mahalo, everyone, Mahalo for tuning in. Thank you very much, Janae for being here with us today.
Dr. Jenee Odani:Thanks for having me.
Unknown:Yeah. And Alqueva me talks to her again. Bye