MONROE — The bleating pygmy goat wasn’t the only one who felt bad.
“In the past seven years we’ve been showing, we’ve never had anything sent home in any show or any fair or anything,” owner Amy Schultz said. “I’m kind of upset about it. I hope they get better really soon.”
Four of Schultz’s 20 goats didn’t clear veterinary inspection at the Evergreen State Fair on Wednesday. A few were congested. Another had a low fever, about 104 degrees.
So it went, as three doctors from Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital of Snohomish gave hundreds of show animals a checkup as soon as the animals climbed out of trailers, en route to fair barns.
“I always tell people, you send your kids off to school and all of a sudden they get exposed to things that they aren’t exposed to at home,” said veterinarian Roger Hancock, 48. “We kind of help prevent the sick animal from slipping through.”
The issue of sick animals has come into sharper focus in recent months, locally and nationally. A breakout of fever at the 2008 Puyallup Fair killed 19 cattle, while swine flu has led to some concerns.
The tight concentration of animals at the fair creates a situation ideal for the spread of illness.
Infections can move among a class of animals or jump from one species to another. That’s what happened in Puyallup last year, when malignant catarrhal fever was passed from sheep to cows.
The deadly incident was a wake-up call for some exhibitors. Several people praised the Evergreen State Fair’s screening process, including Tammi Schoenbachler, 44, who was showing about a dozen dairy cows from her Stanwood farm.
“We don’t want anything that’s not healthy coming in,” she said.
The veterinarians shed their blue rubber gloves after each inspection. The check-ups often took less than a minute, assuming the vets didn’t catch an obvious symptom.
The vets weren’t worried about getting ill themselves. Hancock shrugged off swine flu, saying it wasn’t of pointed concern — at least no more so than it is anywhere. Even so, the fair has added hand sanitization areas to all of its barns to address the issue, as well as more common bacteria such as e. coli.
Hancock, a Californian now living in Granite Falls, wasn’t only looking for sick animals. He shared scones with staff and visited with clients.
One pulled him aside with a small issue: A calf had five teats. Milking machines only have four suction cups.
Hancock made a quick snip and held up the tiny black teat.
“It’s like having a wart,” he said. “It doesn’t have any real nerves when they’re young.”
Of course, the veterinarians’ primary purpose was to weed out sick animals. Hancock expected the staff would send home 1 percent or 2 percent of several hundred cows, sheep, goats and swine.
Schultz’s four goats were among that tiny group.
The Stanwood teenager was a bit shaken by the unexpected news that a few of her pets had to go home. Sure, her favorites cleared inspection, but still.
“I just hope everything goes a little bit better than it has this morning,” she said.
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455, arathbun@heraldnet.com
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