It’s a familiar sight across the West: Dr. Daryl Meyer pulling into a ranch yard with camper trailer in tow, ready to get to work spaying hundreds of heifers at a time. As one of the longstanding veterans in the industry specializing in the practice, Daryl has earned a reputation for his efficiency and reliability.
Daryl has traveled a well-established route across the country for the past two-and-a-half decades, driving tens of thousands of miles to reach his clients. Each December, he begins his journey from his home in North Platte, NE, heading westward to California. Once there, he eases into spaying heifers before the season ramps up in January and continues full force through mid-March. Once he’s finished in the Golden State, he moves on through Idaho, Kansas and Nebraska before heading back west again to finish out the spring.
“I’ve learned a lot from my clients,” Daryl told WLJ of his many miles across the country. “And I’ve certainly seen different ways of managing cattle. I appreciate what I’ve learned from them.”
Early career
Daryl grew up on a farming operation in the far west panhandle of Nebraska, which boasted a graduating high school class of less than 20 students. Graduation sent him to the University of Nebraska, then onto Colorado State University and finally the University of Missouri for veterinary school.
He began his veterinary career in general practice, dedicating nearly a decade there before transitioning to private contract research work for pharmaceutical companies. Daryl spayed his first heifer during an externship in vet school in 1976 and continued spaying heifers throughout his early career, though it wasn’t a primary focus at the time.
In 1998, Daryl made the decision to turn spaying heifers into his full-time career. Averaging 50,000 head a year, and “slowing down” to closer to 40,000 in recent years, Daryl has spayed well over a million head after more than 25 years in the field. By the numbers, the mileage tells another impressive story—he logs about 40,000 miles a year, compared to as many as 60,000 miles a year earlier in his career.
Daryl encourages newer veterinarians to enter the field to help cover the demand, but it’s a practice that is difficult to master. Students and other vets will shadow him on the job to learn the technique, but Daryl said frustration can quickly take over.
“I tell people that you’ve got to be patient with yourself and persistent, and just have got to stick with it,” he said. “Once you get the hand-brain connection, then you’ve got it. And then it’s just a matter of numbers, repetition, just like any other surgical procedure.”
The spaying process
The earliest visual record of heifer spaying Daryl has seen dates back more than 150 years, depicting a heifer with a small incision on her flank, tied between two horses to hold steady. Back then, the process involved a person reaching in with their fingers and removing the ovaries before stitching the incision closed.
Although the fundamentals of the practice have not changed, the technique has progressed over the years. The flank method was common practice when Daryl was in vet school, which required an incision to be made on the left flank and surgically removing the ovaries through the incision. In the early ’80s, vaginal spaying was introduced and is the method Daryl has done ever since. Vaginal spaying is not only quicker but is less stressful and reduces the risk of infection, he said. The ovarian drop method involves using a stainless-steel rod with an arrowhead-shaped end open in the middle to excise the ovaries, allowing them to drop into the abdominal cavity for absorption by the body.
Daryl emphasized that with a good, calm crew and a reliable chute that will hold heifers upright and steady, each heifer could spend just 45-55 seconds in the chute. Beginning at 7 a.m. and wrapping up at about 4:30 p.m., Daryl and crew can easily spay 500 head in a day.
“I’ve been working with a lot of these crews for many years now,” Daryl said. “So they’re really familiar with how we do things: have them bring heifers up the alleyway quietly; don’t get in a big hurry—we can only do it one at a time.”
Everyone falls into a routine and rhythm, and soon enough it’s lunchtime and 300 head have been processed.
“I work with a lot of good people, and a lot of these crews have been there a long time,” Daryl said. “When I do finally quit, or I just fall over and can’t do it anymore,” he added with a laugh, “that’s what I’ll miss the most: just working with a lot of really good people.”
Spaying advantages
Although the percentage of the heifer crop spayed likely remains below 10%, the practice offers several advantages. Spaying heifers before sending them to a feedlot helps prevent pregnancy complications and reduce management costs, such as eliminating the need for preg checking and the use of melengestrol acetate (MGA). The liability for pregnant heifers in a feedlot easily costs about $300, Daryl said.
In addition, spayed heifers have been shown to produce increased gains, especially when combined with implanting. Research shows that spayed and implanted heifers will outperform intact heifers on grass by about 0.12-0.15 pounds per day. In the feedlot, those numbers were closer to 0.02-0.25/lbs. per day. Some research has shown the response to implantation in spayed heifers was four-fold compared to intact heifers.
While most operations will implant spayed heifers, there is a small, but increasing percentage of natural operations spaying heifers and not using implants. For some of the Plains states in particular, there is a premium for non-hormone treated cattle from packers that ship to Europe.
“My advice to people is if you can get lined up with a program where you know for sure you’re going to get a premium, then I think it’s certainly worth taking a hard look at and maybe getting involved with that,” Daryl said.
“But just to spay and then sell them in a regular, commodity-type selling system, then you’re taking a chance of maybe not getting enough extra to make up for the pounds that you don’t have because you didn’t implant them,” he continued.
Another advantage to spaying, Daryl adds, is it’s simply a good management tool. Some summer grazing or winter grazing operations will not take intact heifers in order to reduce conflicts with neighboring bulls.
“It saves the headache down the road,” he said. — Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
