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Worm Control News
November, 2009
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H-LAB PROFILE
About John Byrd, DVM
In this
section of the newsletter, we'll introduce you to the people at H-Lab, explain
what we do behind the scenes, and highlight actual customers and their worm
control strategies.
Born and
raised in Illinois, Dr. John Byrd has been a horseman nearly his entire life.
"I got my first pony when I entered grade school. He was unbroken, and I
trained him with my dad's help," says Dr. Byrd. "We always lived in rural
areas, so up through high school I rode after school and every weekend with the
rest of the neighbor kids."
He spent so much time in the saddle that he thought
a horse training career was ahead of him, until he met his future wife.
"Becky's mom said she couldn't marry anyone who didn't go to college, so that ultimatum,
combined with advice from someone I respected, pointed me to veterinary
school," he says.
Dr. Byrd's
education included pre-veterinary medicine at Western Illinois University, and
veterinary school at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine
at Champaign-Urbana. A 1970 grad, he was plenty busy both during and after
college. "We got married and had both of our sons while I was in college, then
after graduation we stayed in the area and I opened a mobile equine practice,"
he says. However, raising and training horses was still in the picture, with
the Byrds building a Quarter Horse breeding farm near Mahomet, Ill.
The next decades brought several cross-country
moves, first to Florida in 1977 where Dr. Byrd completed his large animal
internal medical residency at the University of Florida. After a short return
to the farm in Mahomet, the couple relocated in February of 1980 to Tustin,
Calif., where Dr. Byrd started another equine practice.
During the
12 years they spent in Orange County, Dr. Byrd served many large show stables
with his practice; for six of those years, he was also the official sales
veterinarian for the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association. "Through
my affiliation with the PCQHRA, I examined many outstanding running Quarter
Horses and broodmares," he says. After leaving California, the Byrds returned
to the Mahomet farm, where they live today and which they now operate as a
boarding stable.
In the fall
of 1990, shortly after daily dewormers entered the market, Dr. Byrd started
checking stools on most of the horses he was deworming, in response to the two
questions that clients most frequently asked. "How do you know my horse has
worms? How do you know the dewormer got rid of the worms?" Dr. Byrd thought
there should be a better answer to those two questions than simply stating 'the
drug companies say so.'
The answer
to those questions, Horsemen's Laboratory, got underway in 1992 after research
and consultation with equine parasitology experts. H-Lab has grown over the
years, mostly by word of mouth; recently it's become a matter of right place,
right time. "I always thought Horsemen's Lab would take off, and now we're
seeing this resistance issue showing up, so I think people will become more
aware of the problems that constant deworming can bring about," says Dr. Byrd.
His goal is
to have more owners checking their horses to determine the best worm control
program for their own unique situation, rather than relying upon a
one-size-fits-all approach. While Dr. Byrd's had a full veterinary career and
many years in the equine industry, he says the changing world of equine health
never gets old for him. "I really enjoy the horse business, and visiting with
people about their horse parasite problems and what's best for their horses,"
he says.
Next month:
H-Lab office manager, Becky Byrd
To read the entire November issue of Worm Control News, click here.
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