Morning every one!
I won't put al;ot of things on here no one wants to read -- but I feel like I should add a few momentos to the thread.
I started learning ET in 1981, WAY before any one was teaching it, and before there were very many people even doing it. I can remember about a dozen good guys, a few of them are still at it today - me being one. To tell you that ET is easy is like running backwards down the interstate trying to catch the traffic -- it ain't gonna happen! Unless you are serious about it, and you have lots of cows to play with, you are going to be in for some frustrating times. I think back then it took me almost 6 months to get my first pregnancy, of course it was all trial and error -- we are past that today.
Ag Tech runs a pretty good school, but ask your self this question, even with the best trainers, and the best equipment, how much can you actually retain from three days worth of class room and a few cows hands on??? It takes time to perfect anything inlife, this is no different. A good friend of mine named Curt went to that school 5 years ago or so, he came home with the knowledge to do it if he practiced his tehnique, but after a few flushes and a few more transfers, he realized it was not going to be for him. He bought the whole deal when he went, 12,000$ later - his scope and freezer are sitting drawing dust, and they use a commercial out fit to the thier work.
I am not trying to discourage you from going, you will enjoy the class, and get alot from it. They are good people. Understnad something however, it will not happen over night, you simply can not flush one or two cows in class and stick a few dumby eggs in some cull cows and feel you can go home and do one of your 10,000 dollar cows and get pregnancies -- it is frustrating work and simply takes lots of practice to perfect.
I have said many time over that if I had to go back and learn it again from scratch , knowing what it took to do the first time, I would have never went thru it all again. I love my job, I work for myself and get great pleasure from seeing results for my customers and can't imagine doing anything else today. I started 27 years ago, and believe me, there are still tiomes when I fail to get the job done as good as I wanted to do.
You will not need to worry at all about any regs if you do your own cows only, and in most states, if you are GOOD at it, and the feds don't get complaints like they did up in Iowa a few years ago on a couple of grads fom Elsdens school, you would probably still be ok. I don't step on toes out here, I get along with every Vet I know except one, and he just happens to be a competitot who WILL turn you in ifhe gets the chance. He has done it already to several others who tried to promote the service using Rx drugs -- that was his reason he said. You can get any drug in this country if you have a Vet-Client relationship -- in other words, they are prescription drugs -- anything from Lidocaine to Follitropin, they are all prescription. Fda is getting harder to deal with all the time too -- so it gets frustrating.
I guess I wanted to let you know that you do need to go, but come home with a realistic outlook. You will get frustrated, you WILL get pissed and doubt your decision, but if you try hard and don't quit, eventually you will succeed!
One word of advice, if you ever do decide to do some out side cows, I would encourage you to make sure you have done at least 50 donors at home, and transfdered at least 200 embryos first. That is a very dire minimum, you will see why I say that while you learn. Having said all this, I wish you the very best of luck -- get excited and go try -- but be ready for lots of frustration along the way!
(thumbsup)
Terry
