CVM Student in West Texas Offers Helping Hand during Disaster
After a thunderstorm with high winds, and possibly even a tornado, hit Deer Creek Calf Ranch late in the afternoon on June 22, an estimated 12,000 calf hutches were lost at the Dalhart, Texas, farm.
So when Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM) alumnus Dr. Joe Hillhouse and his intern Elizabeth Lake, a CVM third-year veterinary student participating in the West Texas Food Animal and Rural Practice Summer Internship Program, got the call that help was needed, they jumped in their vehicle to drive the couple of hours to lend a hand.
Hillhouse was contacted through the Panhandle Livestock Professionals listserv by Dr. Jason Shumaker, a consulting veterinarian for the Deer Creek Calf Ranch and a trusted colleague of Hillhouse, and he and Lake joined 500-600 other volunteers in wrangling calves into pens and back into hutches.
“As you can imagine, 12,000 baby calves running loose was more than somewhat chaotic,” said Hillhouse, who owns Carson County Veterinary Clinic in Panhandle, Texas, and High Plains Animal Hospital in Borger, Texas. “The saving grace that day was that a large number of new pens just north of the calf hutches were being completed and it was somewhat simple to push the escaped babies into those pens.”
Hillhouse and Lake, along with three other veterinarians, also inspected the calves individually for injury.
“By mid-afternoon, we had inspected what we felt like was greater than 90 percent of the homeless calves,” Hillhouse said. “Luckily, serious injury was rare. Most of the calves were taken from those pens in trailers to new hutches that were being quickly set up that afternoon. By dark, most all of the babies had new homes and a much-needed bottle of milk.
While “wading through seas of very hungry and determined baby calves,” Lake performed admirably, according to Hillhouse.
“I would guess that she and I looked at close to 2,000 calves,” he said. “It was a very unique experience for all of us.
“The response to this emergency was impressive,” he continued. “The owners of the farm did a very good job of coordinating volunteers with some very good support efforts and tons of Porta Potties.”
