Crystal Heath

You can thank the American Kennel Club for keeping the puppy mill pipeline alive. They just delayed the retail pet store law that would ban dog, cat, and rabbit sales.

#vetmed #animalwelfare #veterinarian #adoptdontshop #spayandneuter

1 month ago | [YT] | 9

Crystal Heath

Proud to be among the more than 30 journalists arrested this year documenting the reaction to our government's crimes against civilians.

Check out my story featured in this piece.

pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/press-arrests-used-to-…

#FreeSpeech #PressFreedom #1stAmendment

1 month ago | [YT] | 14

Crystal Heath

Should we vaccinate poultry flocks and dairy herds for avian influenza?

This question keeps coming up, and I want to be transparent about how I’m thinking through it. I don’t pretend this is simple, settled, or purely technical. It’s a policy choice with animal welfare, public health, food security, trade, and power dynamics all wrapped together.

I would love to know your thoughts. Here’s where I’m at right now:

open.substack.com/pub/crystalheathdvm/p/an-indepen…

1 month ago | [YT] | 6

Crystal Heath

It's not ballot box biology, but it's something.

I'm as pro-vax as anyone, but I think a lot of people don't understand the problems with avian influenza vaccines in an industrial animal production context.

France vaccinates, and the greatest increase in new poultry farm outbreaks confirmed over the previous week was in France at 32, of which 21 involved vaccinated ducks.

France's strategy has been to maintain high surveillance in vaccinated flocks, so any mortalities that happen are tested, and then flocks are depopulated if they test positive.

#h5n1 #onehealth #avianinfluenza #Vetmed #vettwitter #animalwelfare #factoryfarming #farmtofork #farmtotable #foodtruth

1 month ago | [YT] | 4

Crystal Heath

How will the mass killing of sheep due to the sheep pox outbreak in Greece shift the production of feta? Thank you, @FoodInstitute, for including my perspective in this story. This is a great opportunity for companies making feta using animal-free methods to capitalize on the moment.

foodinstitute.com/focus/sheep-goat-pox-outbreak-in…

#feta #vetmed #onehealth #foodsecurity #foodsafety

1 month ago | [YT] | 16

Crystal Heath

Activists engage in disruptions and acts of civil disobedience to create a crisis that generates the top-of-funnel attention needed to mobilize resources and action.

But, no activist protest or act of civil disobedience could ever create a crisis or stop the gears of industry from moving as well as viruses can.

What if we actually followed these viruses and encouraged experts to weigh in and advocate for policy that protects public health, animals, and food security?

In Greece, where feta cheese is produced, they have recently exterminated about 5% of their national herd, or around 400,000 animals, due to goat/sheep pox.

What are we doing to raise awareness about this crisis?

Under EU Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) rules, production is geographically concentrated within a narrow ecological zone, and processors cannot legally diversify outside these regions. PDO rules require that authentic feta be produced in specific Greek regions using milk from sheep and goats raised there.

PDO controls origin, breed type, feeding basis, milk composition, and cheese-making method, so these producers can adopt “factory farming” or modern intensive production systems, while still maintaining their PDO feta status.  According to the rules,“The animals must be fed mainly on the flora of the region. Feeding must follow traditional practices.” But this does not require pasture-only diets. This allows for supplemental grains, purchased feed, hay or silage, concentrates used in dairy production, feed crops grown onsite, and commercial dairy rations, as long as they are not the primary diet.

So when you buy feta, it might not come from a sheep or goat grazing on pasture, but one who was confined in an industrial facility.

A recent regional climate-modeling study projects that across large parts of Greece, average temperatures will increase by 1.2 – 1.6 °C by mid-century. As a result, the number of hours per year when sheep (and by extension goats) will face severe or dangerous heat stress is expected to roughly double.

How are the infected animals killed?

Animals are gathered into pens or buildings, and teams move through groups and kill the animals with a shot to the head via a captive-bolt gun. They are immediately bled out after stunning, and their carcasses are loaded onto trucks for rendering or incineration.

Why are they bled out? Doesn’t this further risk the spread of disease? Sheep and goats have robust brainstem reflexes, and captive-bolt stunning can sometimes produce reversible unconsciousness if the bolt angle or placement is imperfect. EU regulations require a “kill-confirmation step” that guarantees death before carcass handling, loading, or disposal. So bleeding assures the animals are dead.

The virus in sheep/goat pox is not bloodborne, as many people assume.

Capripoxviruses are found primarily in skin lesions, wool/hair, nasal discharge, respiratory secretions, scabs, and contaminated bedding or surfaces. While viraemia (virus in blood) occurs during early infection, bleeding from a killed animal is not a major transmission route.

In some villages, animals are killed outdoors in corrals due to a lack of handling facilities. In mountainous or remote pastoral systems, the animals are killed with sniper-style shots (free bullet). In some cases, the dragging and removal of carcasses is delayed by the rugged terrain. The Greek press has documented long lines of bags containing carcasses being removed from affected facilities.

These animals suffer a variety of painful health conditions from mass-producing milk for the feta industry. One 2023 study showed that over 50% of animals suffered from subclinical mastitis, an infection of the mammary gland, throughout a milking period, with staphylococci being the most important causal agents of the infection.

Greek dairy goats and sheep can live well over a decade, but in feta-producing systems, they are typically culled at only 5–7 years of age, often earlier if milk production declines.

Image courtesy of We Animals.

#feta #goatpox #sheeppox #greececulling #animalwelfare #foodsecurity

1 month ago | [YT] | 7

Crystal Heath

If my instructors had added a little more discussion about the corporate corruption, bailouts, cover-ups, bullying, and retaliation of veterinarians, maybe I would have paid more attention!

#h5n1 #Onehealth #animalwelfare

1 month ago | [YT] | 4

Crystal Heath

If veterinarians want to be respected as much as human doctors, we should train veterinary students to respect their patients.

#nomv #vetmed #vetschool #veterinarian #vetstudent #animalwelfare

1 month ago | [YT] | 6

Crystal Heath

Grok always has my back.

We cannot feed the world on grass-fed beef. We don't have enough land.

In the U.S., about two-thirds (~ 66–67%) of total protein intake comes from animal sources rather than plants.

Among that animal portion, meats (including beef, poultry, pork, etc.) are a substantial chunk, alongside dairy, eggs, and fish.

More specifically: consumption of beef contributes roughly 14% of total daily protein intake on average.

🔹 How much of beef — and beef-protein — is grass-fed/grass-finished

As we discussed earlier: only a small fraction — on the order of a few percent — of U.S. beef production is actually grass-fed and grass-finished.

That means only a small slice of the “beef protein” wedge goes to grass-finished beef.

🔹 Multiplying those layers: total protein from grass-finished beef

So if ~14% of protein comes from beef, and only a few percent of that beef is likely grass-finished, then:

~14% (beef’s share of total protein) × ~2–5% (share of beef that’s grass-fin/grass-fed) ≈ 0.3% to 0.7%

That would suggest that well under 1% of total protein consumed in the U.S. comes from grass-fed, grass-finished beef — probably closer to a few tenths of a percent.

2 months ago | [YT] | 6

Crystal Heath

This is laughable because cows on US feedlots are often fed this cereal if it is out of spec.

Here are some additional things most U.S. cattle on feedlots are fed:

Ionophores (e.g., monensin), buffers (sodium bicarbonate, sodium sesquicarbonate), yeast cultures and other direct-fed microbials, enzymes, essential oils, and more…

• Antibiotics (in beef systems especially)

• Buffers, yeast cultures, probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes, beta-agonists, antiparasitics, etc

Dairy and feedlot rations are built around industrial by-products, food-processing waste streams, and a long list of additives and drugs, not just “simple feed.”

In feedlots, most large operations are using injectable antimicrobials as group treatments, and about 20% of all fed cattle get metaphylaxis on arrival, plus additional feed and water medications.

There are five main metaphylactic antimicrobials used:

• Tulathromycin (Draxxin®) – macrolide
• Ceftiofur (Excede®) – 3rd-gen cephalosporin
• Tilmicosin (Micotil®) – macrolide
• Florfenicol (Nuflor®) – phenicol
• Gamithromycin (Zactran®) – macrolide

#maha #rfk #onehealth #vetmed #vettwitter #publichealth #animalwelfare

2 months ago | [YT] | 5