[music playing] Kelly: We take this episode of The Paw Report in a couple of different directions.

There's a specialized group of people that play a very important role at veterinary hospitals.

On this episode, we're joined by returning guest, Dr. Krista Keller.

She'll explain what vet techs do and how they assist with the daily operations at U of I's College of Veterinary Medicine.

But that's not all.

Stay with us.

[music playing] Rameen: The Paw Report on WEIU is supported by Rural King, America's farm and home store, livestock feed, farm equipment, pet supplies and more.

You can find your store and more information regarding Rural King at ruralking.com.

Rob: Dave's Decorating Center is a proud supporter of The Paw Report on WEIU.

Dave's Decorating Center features the Mohawk Smartstrand Silk Forever Clean carpet.

Dave's Decorating Center, authorized Mohawk color center in Charleston.

Kelly: Thanks for joining us for this episode of The Paw Report.

I am your host, Kelly Goodwin.

We have a returning guest on The Paw Report today, Dr. Krista Keller from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Krista: Thank you.

Kelly: When we corresponded about our episode, of course you gave me a lot of different topics to choose from.

So we decided we were going to do a smorgasbord of Paw Report topics today.

We're going to start with the first topic, and you said these are really the unsung heroes in veterinary medicine.

These are the vet techs that you work with.

What exactly is a vet tech?

Krista: Yes, I'm glad we're talking about veterinary technicians today.

So I think the easiest way to explain to the public what a veterinary technician is is to compare them in the human medical field to nurses.

Nurses play lots of different roles.

They can be more generalist in terms of who they treat and in what sectors, or they can be more specialized, like you've heard of a NICU nurse before or a pediatrics nurse.

Technicians play a really similar role.

They have advanced training.

They're trained to do all of these things with animals.

They can be more generalist or they could go on to get specialization in something like maybe anesthesia or radiology or to work with fun species, like I work with.

They definitely play... they're an important part of the veterinary healthcare team.

Most of the pet owners don't necessarily all the time interact with them face-to-face.

So that's why I think they're these unsung heroes is that the public maybe doesn't know what role they play in their pet's healthcare.

Kelly: Do you have to have certain skills?

I look at you and I think as a young child you probably always knew that you wanted to go into... No?

Krista: No, not me.

Most veterinarians, yes.

Most veterinarians, yes.

I knew medicine, but I didn't know it was veterinary medicine.

Kelly: Do you have to have a certain skillset or maybe a background to kind of go into this field?

Krista: Yeah.

I think the skills that most technicians have are super ... they're super hands associated skills.

They really are hands-on skills that they usually learn in tech school where they're doing ...

They know how to place catheters into veins and catheters into urinary bladders.

They know how to obtain blood and handle animals.

Think about all of the different species that we work with.

Some of them, restraining a Border Collie is much different than restraining a chicken.

So even just being able to be safe like that, knowing how to safely anesthetize all those different species, how to put a breathing tube in for, again, a parrot is much different than an iguana is much different than a horse or whatever.

So it's a lot of hands-on skills.

I would say the vast majority of the technicians I've worked with are also amazing organizational skills.

Most veterinary hospitals in that clinical setting are actually really run by the technicians.

I love a great technician who can run me who says, "Dr. Keller, why aren't you in room three?

You need to get there," or, "The students are waiting for you in the conference room.

Where are you at?"

You know?

So they're really, really good at organizational skills as well, which I need.

Kelly: Now, you mentioned they work with you, but vet techs also work in a lot of other arenas too.

I'm thinking hospitals, zoos, individual clinics.

So there's a lot of places where they can use their talents.

Krista: Mm-hmm.

Anywhere that there's a animal healthcare setting, a veterinary technician will benefit that team greatly.

So other places outside of zoo, aquarium, which are kind of those non-traditional species they're working with, outside of the community practice or even our practice at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, there's veterinary technicians that work with animals in research, so like in a lab animal setting where they work with mice or rats and they help anesthetize those animals while samples are being obtained for research.

There's large animal practices where veterinarians are ambulatory practice.

So they drive their truck to the farms.

They might have a technician that's with them that's helping them restrain and obtain samples and run samples and do all the paperwork that's involved with a veterinary practice.

There's a lot of corporations that maybe make animal products, animal healthcare products.

I was just having a lovely conversation with a veterinary technician on the phone.

I called this corporation to talk about a product that I had been using I had questions about, and this amazing veterinary technician picked up the phone.

They were so helpful that I was like, "I want to know more about your background," and it was a veterinary technician.

This person had used their really strong clinical background and parlayed that into a little bit of a different aspect of a career that they could use with their technician skills.

Kelly: Is this a four year educational background that you would need, so requirement certifications that you would need to become a technician?

Krista: Yeah.

In Illinois, to be a certified veterinary technician, you have to go through a technician school.

I think there are both two year and four year programs.

There's technician schools here in the State of Illinois as well as just a whole ton of them across the United States.

So there's quite a few technician schools or schools that have veterinary technician programs.

Then all of our technicians take a national board exam.

So in the same way that 100 years ago after I graduated from vet school, I took a National Veterinary Board Exam.

Then in the State of Illinois, I think they have to take another kind of state associated exam that I haven't taken, so of course I can't comment on that that much.

Then another thing is that they really have to keep their certification current by doing continuing education.

So just like you want your doctor that you're seeing for, you know, your cardiologist or your neurologist to be up on what are the newest techniques in their field, we want our veterinary technicians to have all that current knowledge as well.

So they have requirements for continuing education.

They're going off to conferences and sitting through more boring lectures, I guess.

I hope that not all the lectures are boring.

I give some of them, so I hope those ones aren't boring.

They're sitting through lectures.

They're doing maybe some laboratories where they're learning some new techniques.

It's similar to other individuals in the healthcare field.

It's lifelong education and a dedication to improving your knowledge and continuing to gain knowledge through your entire career.

Kelly: Is it a field that is, A, growing?

Is there a large need?

I mean, you're a veterinarian.

Do you see in your arena of other colleagues that there is a heavy need for technicians?

Krista: Yeah, 100%.

I worked in private practice in a different state before coming to University of Illinois.

We had a need for more technicians there.

Now I'm in academic practice at the university.

We're hiring.

I talk to veterinarians all across the state and in surrounding states all the time.

Usually we gab a little.

We talk about the case and then we gab a little, of course.

They're sharing the same sentiment, that they need more technicians.

They need more skilled professionals that are there.

So if it's something that somebody watching, it sounds interesting, just know the field is in need of your skills, in need of your passion for sure.

Kelly: And growing.

They contact the University of Illinois, potentially you, to get some more information.

Krista: I'll send them in the right direction.

Yes.

Kelly: We're going to change the direction of the show just a little bit.

Technicians, they work with all types of animals, maybe rabbits.

That's where we're going to go now.

Krista: Love it.

Kelly: We're going to talk about those viewers out there watching that may have rabbits as home pets, and something they should be aware of, vaccinations and a virus that's making its way into homes and rabbits, both wild and those in personal homes.

Let's talk about rabbits and why vaccinations are important and specifically this deadly virus that's making its way around.

Krista: Yes.

Super scary.

I know whenever you say the word virus now, kind of everyone shuts down.

Kelly: Absolutely.

Krista: Our current human pandemic of COVID started Spring of 2020, year that must not be named.

What's interesting as we kind of look at the rabbits is that that same spring, there was a rabbit virus that was introduced to the country as well.

So we've been having these two pandemics actually happening at the same time.

I think our human pandemic has been so all encompassing that we haven't been able to focus too much on the rabbit pandemic.

The virus is called Rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus, or RHDV.

RHDV has been an important reason for vaccination of rabbits in Europe and Australia for many, many, many years.

So if you live in Europe and Australia and you have a rabbit, it is definitely part of the annual recommendation.

You go see your veterinarian, you get one of your vaccines.

The virus has never really been here in the United States.

It's been an exotic animal disease, so we haven't had this recommendation, requirement, any of that for a vaccine.

But in Spring of 2020, there was, we don't know how it came in, but it came into our country and it's a brand new variant of RHDV.

Everyone now knows what the word variant means, because we've all been schooled in- Kelly: We're familiar.

Yes.

Krista: ... yeah, infectious diseases.

This RHDV 2, is what it's called, is a lot more deadly, a lot more scary.

It actually has a larger number of species of rabbits that can be affected.

So a lot of our wild rabbit species in the United States are dying from this virus, particularly in the Southwest part of the country.

There's been these awful outbreaks.

Then there has been several outbreaks of pet rabbits that have also come down with the virus and ultimately died from it.

So in the midst of all of this, similar to the human pandemic where we then had vaccines that were created, there has been a vaccine that's been created against this RHDV 2 variant.

It is not yet FDA approved.

It's going through that approval process, but while it's in that process, the Federal Government decided that the risk was great enough for our rabbit population that they granted this emergency use authorization for the use of this vaccine.

So that emergency use authorization was exactly what happened with the first COVID vaccine, so there's a lot of similarities here.

I'm sorry if I'm giving everyone flashbacks.

That authorization came in kind of October/November from the Federal Government in '21.

Then the State of Illinois also approved the use in late of 2021.

So at University of Illinois, we've been using this vaccine in monthly vaccine clinics that are open to the public to bring in their rabbit, have a quick exam from our students and then receive the vaccine.

We've been doing that since January.

I think as we look at how serious this virus is, that it really can kill rabbits, it can kill rabbits very, very quickly and that it is kind of spreading across the country and has gone to different states very quickly, that we should think about vaccination as a part of the way to prevent this disease from coming into our homes and affecting our rabbits.

Kelly: How close has it come to Illinois in your research?

Krista: We've had a couple of close calls.

We've had a couple of suspect cases that have come into the hospital where animals have died very quickly and have had the signs of bleeding some place, because the Rabbit hemorrhagic disease, that word hemorrhage means bleeding.

So we have definitely tested all of those rabbits and bunnies, and they've all come up negative so far.

So there hasn't been a case in Central Illinois, unless something happened very recently, at the time of this taping.

There have been cases in surrounding states though.

So there was a case in Tennessee a couple months ago now.

What's kind of scary about it is that every time there's a case, nobody really knows where it came from.

It can't be traced back to like, "Hey, this rabbit was hanging out with another rabbit that hung out with another rabbit."

We haven't really been able to trace it.

Part of the scariness of this virus is its very sturdy in the environment.

So one thing that we're concerned about is that if you have a backyard like mine that's filled with wild rabbits and you walk around in your backyard and do some yard work, occasionally, you may come in contact with that virus on the bottom of your shoes.

If you're bringing your shoes into your house, you could then track that virus into your house.

So unlike some other viruses that die very quickly in the environment, this RHDV 2 virus can live for awhile in the environment.

There's a concern that if you have wild rabbit populations in your backyard, like a lot of us do, that we could track that into our home with our shoes, maybe with a rake or something that has gone outside and come into contact with something that came into contact with a rabbit.

Kelly: Right.

Is it all within fecal matter, or is it saliva, is it airborne?

What more do we know about the transmission of this virus?

Krista: Yeah.

I don't think it's airborne.

I think it truly is ... it has to be something that's tracked in.

Although, that contact can be kind of microscopic contract.

So it doesn't need to be rabbit touches sick rabbit.

It really can be this bowl was eaten out of by sick rabbit, and then we use this bowl and give it to healthy rabbit.

That sick rabbit maybe had some saliva or something that was in there, and now the healthy rabbit is now coming in contact with that saliva.

So it is a direct contact with the virus, but the scary thing is how sturdy the virus is in the environment, that it can really live in the environment for awhile and not be immediately deactivated just because it saw some sunlight or something.

Kelly: Can it affect us?

I mean, if I touch that bowl that has been touched by an infected rabbit, do I have any effects?

Krista: Nope, luckily it is not what we would call a zoonotic disease.

So a zoonotic disease is an infectious disease that we can get from an animal.

This is not a zoonotic disease, so you are safe.

Don't bring it to your bunny, but you are safe.

Yes.

Kelly: Something you recommend.

Do you recommend that all those that have bunnies bring them in, be checked out?

Krista: Mm-hmm.

Kelly: Get the vaccination just to be safe?

Krista: Yeah.

I think that the vaccination can definitely play a role in protecting our pet rabbits.

Other things that I want my clients to really think about are to maybe not feed from food that is gathered on their property.

So for instance, a lot of people will go out their... maybe they plant lettuce in their garden.

Kelly: Garden.

Mm-hmm.

Krista: Don't bring that into your bunny and feed it to your bunny.

Same thing, don't go forge for wild weeds and bring that into your bunny, because that's an access point that we could bring the virus into the house.

I also council my clients to think about taking off their shoes at the front door, because they're not quite sure what they've walked through and keeping the shoes maybe in a mudroom or something else or making sure that there's a lot of separation between shoes and things that have been outside and their pet rabbit.

Right now, I feel very confident about the safety of the vaccine.

I've been giving it to rabbits since January.

Because it hasn't gone through the full FDA process, I don't know exactly how efficacious it is.

Although I think the vaccine is probably going to work lovely and it's going to be FDA approved and then we'll have access to it a lot more regularly and we won't have to have vaccine clinics, we can have it available for your rabbit's annual exam.

I think right now it has to be a tool in the toolbox, because there's a little bit of unknown going on.

So yeah, I think vaccination is part of that protection, but it's also just trying to have...

Think about biosecurity and think about making sure your pet rabbit in the house is very, very separated from anything that's outdoors.

Kelly: All right.

We're going to change gears again.

Maybe it's not rabbits that you have at home, but maybe it's backyard chickens.

Let's see, the pun between the rabbit and the chicken.

I don't know.

I'll let you think about that.

Having backyard chickens is an up and coming kind of new, I don't know if you would call it hobby, I suppose that you would, hobby for people for a variety of reasons, for enjoyment but also for a source of food.

So that's where we're going to take the interview now, because you have some experience with backyard chickens.

You do see some of these chickens.

You have clients that come in with chickens.

Let's get into, I want to raise chickens.

I want to put in a coop.

What do I need to know about doing that?

We'll start with, why do you think it is that people are so intrigued by having these little critters running around?

Krista: Yeah.

Well, chickens are really fun.

I know it sounds like whenever I talk about animals that each one is my favorite animal.

So I apologize.

That's just me.

Chickens have great personalities.

They're really funny.

They're easily trained.

I have clients who definitely have chickens who come when you call their name, and their names are always hilarious like Dorothy, Brenda.

They're really- Kelly: KFC.

Krista: Yeah, the really fun people call them KFC.

They come to their name.

They're trained.

They're really engaging with each other and with the family.

They're habituated to seeing your kids and your dog and you.

So they really are lovely to be around.

They play with their environment.

They're just really fun.

So I do think a lot of my clients legitimately enjoy being around their chickens.

They come home and they're like, "Oh, Brenda needs me.

It's time for her three o'clock worm."

I think this happens.

The chicken ladies know.

They know.

They're like, "She's calling our name."

So that definitely happens.

I do think that I've had clients who said that they started it up for a different reason, you know, they started the hobby for a different reason but now they just love their chickens.

Some of those different reasons, I've had clients tell me that they wanted their kids to learn responsibility.

Kelly: Hard chores.

Krista: Yeah, those are hard chores.

A lot of our kids these days are living in more suburban environments, but maybe when we were raised we had more of a rural environment and had more of those chores.

Right?

Kelly: Right.

Krista: I've had clients tell me that they were really concerned about the welfare of the birds that were laying the eggs when they bought them in the store.

They didn't know if those birds that laid those eggs were taken care of.

So it was a way for them to control their food choice, that they felt more comfortable like, "These birds live in a lap of luxury and they have the best foods and the best play time."

So they felt better ingesting those eggs and feeding those eggs to their family.

I do think that all my crazy chicken people, and I say that with a whole heart of love, they really do enjoy being around their chickens.

Kelly: So how do you get started?

I mean, do you start with making sure that your city, village or town has ordinances that you can have those animals, number one?

Krista: That's a good one.

Kelly: That's most important.

Krista: That's a good one, yep.

Kelly: That you have space, and then we'll go coop and then nutrition and daily care.

Krista: Yeah.

I think investing in a really protective coop becomes very important.

Most of us are in suburban environments, especially if you're going to have a backyard flock, and there are hungry raccoons and foxes and your neighbor's cat and flying owls and all of that sort of thing.

Brenda, who likes her three o'clock worm, looks very delicious for the neighborhood fox.

These animals are very hungry, and when it comes to raccoons, very smart.

So having a coop, a lot of people will home make a coop, which is fine.

If you have the tools and the time and the capability, go ahead.

It really needs to be super secure.

So two layers of wire that are kind of separated by wood.

Dig the wire down into the ground several feet so that way anything that's going to try to tunnel under can't get under.

Here in Illinois, we also have to think about that we can keep them warm enough in the winter and also have a place for them to be in shade in the summer.

So really investing in a coop that is very, very, very secure becomes really important.

I've had several clients tell me that they have... Raccoons have literally opened the lock on the door.

Kelly: Oh yeah, they're smart.

Krista: They are too smart, too smart for their own good.

Maybe try to let your five year old get into it.

If the five year old can't get in, then maybe you're okay.

A hungry five year old, a very hungry five year old.

Kelly: That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

Speaking of hungry, what do they eat?

I mean, do you give them certain foods?

Krista: Mm-hmm.

I think one thing that brings a lot of my chicken clients joy is that they can give their chickens lots of treats and food.

So they lots of times will give them scraps from dinner or vegetable scraps, or they'll buy them worms or dig up worms or whatever.

That's all lovely and great.

Everyone needs some treats in their life.

Right?

But because these are food producing animals, they're laying an egg every 26 hours.

That's insane.

That egg has a ton of calcium and vitamins and fat and protein.

So they really do need a very high plane of nutrition.

So every laying chicken should be on a formulated chicken pellet that's made for laying chickens.

That just really ensures they're not going to have any nutritional deficiencies, that they're going to have all of the calcium and protein and fat that's required to make a really quality egg for you and your family.

Kelly: Do they like to be alone or do they want to be in a flock?

Krista: Oh, they want friends.

They need friends.

They needs friends.

You need a Brenda, a Dorothy a- Kelly: Mm-hmm.

You need a few friends.

Krista: Yes.

My favorite are the clients who name them in swaths.

So they'll be like, "They're all heavy metal rockers from the 1980s."

Then they're like, "This is KISS and this is Black Sabbath."

Kelly: Guns N' Roses.

Krista: Yes, yes.

It makes it a lot more fun for me.

Kelly: Very nice.

What about a rooster?

Do we need that guy in our coop?

Krista: Yeah.

To go back to city/town ordinances, a lot of them- Kelly: They're loud.

Krista: They're very loud.

So a lot of these ordinances will not allow a rooster just because your neighbors will hate you sort of thing.

It's pretty loud.

Even though everyone thinks it's at the crack of dawn, sometimes it's just in the middle of the night.

So it's not a predictable situation with the crowing.

You do not need a male bird for chickens to lay eggs.

So you don't really need a rooster.

Lots of times if there is a rooster, the eggs are fertilized, which we all eat.

If you eat your eggs from the grocery store, they're unfertilized eggs.

If they are fertilized, they look a little bit different.

So I don't think that most people actually want fertilized eggs either.

Kelly: Or more chickens running around.

Krista: Or more chickens, yeah.

Usually you're like, "This is all we can take."

[laughing] Kelly: Dr. Keller, it's such a joy to have you on The Paw Report.

We are out of time.

Krista: Oh my.

Kelly: But we were able to cover a lot of different fantastic topics today.

So once again, we ended on a thank you for coming on The Paw Report.

We look to have you again next season, hopefully.

Krista: 100%.

Kelly: I know we've got a lot more topics that we can talk about.

Krista: Yes.

Kelly: So thank you for joining us.

Krista: Thank you.

Kelly: And thank you, our viewers, for joining us for this episode of The Paw Report.

We hope you'll join us next week.

I'm your host, Kelly Goodwin.

We'll see you then.

Rob: Dave's Decorating Center is a proud supporter of The Paw Report on WEIU.

Dave's Decorating Center features the Mohawk Smartstrand Silk Forever Clean carpet.

Dave's Decorating Center, authorized Mohawk color center in Charleston.

Rameen: The Paw Report on WEIU is supported by Rural King, America's farm and home store, livestock feed, farm equipment, pet supplies and more.

You can find your store and more information regarding Rural King at ruralking.com.

Additional support for The Paw Report provided from Soggie Paws of Mattoon.

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