Click'Em Cowboy!
For years now microchips have been available for pets. A special needle and syringe is used to inject the tiny sterile pellet under the skin. When a hand held scanner is waved over the dog it transmits an electronic signal that "rings" the microchip sort of like you'd ring a bell by tapping on it. As you can hear a difference between different bells by the way they sound, the scanner can analyze the electronic "ring" of the microchip to recognize the ID number. Other than your tapping, no energy is required for a bell to ring, and microchips do not need batteries to send a signal back to a scanner. Similar microchips, embedded in special ear tags, are now used to identify cattle and other food animals.
Like other Veterinarians in Washington State, I am on the mailing list of Dr. Leonard Eldridge, the Washington State Veterinarian. For years he was a partner in the Lewiston Veterinary Clinic. Dr. Eldridge keeps us informed of current items of interest, mostly having to do with Cattle and other food animals. You may have noticed recent articles in the Tribune and other news sources about the current outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in England.
Foot and Mouth disease affects cattle and pigs, as well as other cloven-hoofed animals, and elephants, rats and hedgehogs. It causes painful blisters of the mouth and feet, weight loss and decreased milk production. The virus has been eradicated from the U.S. and many other countries but is extremely contagious so outbreaks like the one in England are important and result in animal quarantines and restrictions on export and imports of meat and other animal food products. Humans are very rarely infected and the virus is killed by stomach acid so there is no risk to humans from eating meat.
Controlling outbreaks such as these is much more effective with a good system of identification of animals, premises (farms, ranches, feed lots) and facilities, like veterinary clinics. According to the USDA, the United States is lagging behind other countries in developing such a system.
Cattle ear tags with microchips are available on voluntary basis, as is premise and facility registration. As of September 17, 2007, there were 417,312 premises registered. The system will not only help contain outbreaks of diseases like foot and mouth disease, as well as others like mad cow disease, scabies, brucellosis, pseudorabies, scrapies, bird flu, West Nile virus, and rabies. It can also bring other direct benefits to ranchers, farmers, and other producers.
We may not, any time soon at least, see cowboys working on laptop computers and waving a scanner instead of a rope, while working cattle but there will be economic advantages to a computerized identification system. It would make it easier and faster to manage production and disease prevention in large herds and bring increased efficiency and marketability. Cattle may be easier to sell and bring more money if a rancher can prove there is no risk of exposure to contagious diseases. Keeping track of the millions of cattle and other food animals and products will be virtually impossible without computers to handle large databases.
One old rancher Dr. Eldridge knew well is turning over in his grave. When he bought a cow that had an ear tag he would yank it out and throw it in the dirt. He never put ear tags in his cows. He said he knew them all by sight and that "those #*&**# ear tags made 'em look like a *#&*!@! Christmas tree. I hate to think of what he'd say about computerized cowboys.