Inside the renovated veterinary technology buildings at the MSU Farm, medical equipment hums and beeps as students and professors operate on a wide variety of animals.
New additions in the surgical operation facility have been focused on more efficiency, space, and flow of animals and people. Dr. Heather Beveridge, a small animal veterinarian at MSU, said this allows more students to work and far more animals to be treated at once.
“Just made it more efficient, more open, easier to bring animals in and out. More viewing areas so students are able to see what’s being done, too. Even if they’re not actively touching animals, they can actually observe a little bit easier now,” said Beveridge.
Along with surgeries such as neutering, the animals operated on in the facility are also given services and amenities like nail trims, blankets, and a place to stay in the kennels. Many of the animals that are taken into the care of the facility are shelter animals who haven’t received much treatment in their lives, that’s according to instructor and large animal technician, Arizona Roberts.
“Our goal here is to be as stress free as possible. So, we try to do as much of the spa treatments, ear cleanings if they need it, nail trims, those kinds of things, while they’re sedated so they don’t have that negative response to the act of performing those tasks,” she said.
The kennels, which have also been remodeled, now feature more complete enclosures for dogs and cat enclosures contain a mixture of pheromones. Program Director and Assistant Professor of Veterinary Technology, Amy Staton, said the smells have a calming effect on otherwise very high-strung felines.
“It’s a chemically made formula that mimics the pheromones from lactating mothers, they’re used to it as kittens. So, we purchase that, it’s in a diffuser so it’s released into the air and it has a calming effect on them,” she said.
Staton said the students must operate on a wide variety of animals to be certified by the American Veterinary Medical Association. These include dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, sheep, goats, rats, birds, pigs, and cows. Both the cats and dogs are provided with relaxing music in their enclosures to further help ease them into their environment.
Staton also said the Equine Health building was dedicated to Program Director and full-time Professor of Veterinary Technology, Philip Prater, who retired in 2023. It has been named the “Dr. Phil Prater Equine Health and Education Center.”
“So that building is probably about 20 years old, give or take a few years, and so it was rededicated to Dr. Philip Prater who retired from Morehead recently. He had been here 25 years, and he was the Program Director here and full professor at Morehead,” said Staton.
The Equine Health building is equipped with examination rooms and stocks, specifically designed for the safety of both the horse and the operators. Staton said the examination rooms in the building and many of the other surgical facilities on the MSU Farm deliberately have a lot of empty space, and that this is primarily for the cleanliness of the rooms and occupants, as an excess of equipment could cause an accumulation of contaminants.
More information on the Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences department at MSU can be found online at moreheadstate.edu.