RVETS

06/09/2026

Tarek and Jamie doing a great job at Blackfeet, veterinary medicine and teaching!

06/09/2026

Tarek and Jamie, doing good work at Blackfeet. Thank you Lynne and Two Powers!

06/06/2026

Gusano barrenador YIKES!
Gusanos barrenadores, aka “Screw Worm”, aka Cochliomyia hominivorax is one of a host of flies whose larvae (aka maggots) live in tissues on live animals. You can actually buy sterile maggots to debride dead skin and muscle in a variety of species, including humans. However, the operative word here is “dead” (!) .
While a number of flies will lay eggs on dead skin, which will turn into disgusting maggots munching away on the devitalized, necrotic tissues surrounding a wound, C. hominivorax is unique in the “New World” in that it will eat into living, bleeding, sensitive tissue if it can get through the skin. At one time, this was a huge problem in the southern USA, particularly Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. Cattle, horses, or mules that got wounded in many of the ways that they do, would end up with huge infestations of maggots eating away parts of their bodies. A cowboy in west Texas would spend his days in the saddle looking for calves with screw worm infestations, rope them, and treat with various mixtures to kill the maggots before they killed and consumed the entire calf.
For many years international treaties and work by USAID kept the screw worm plague isolated to the most tropical and remote of Latin American countries. However, as the climate changes (and, YES, it does…!) and funding for disease surveillance has been cut (and, YES , it has….!) these nasty critters are moving North! They are currently in Central America, several States in México, and one county in south Texas. This should be of deep concern for people who care about animal welfare and health, but human health and welfare too.
People DO get screw worm infestations, especially children, and even if they don’t, these parasites do horrible things to livestock production, poor folk’s family incomes, and the ability of hard-working draft animals to do their jobs. Right now, RVETS México are up in the Sierra Gorda dealing with los gusanos barrenadores. This picture may be a little gross, but those holes in the sheath of this c**t were drilled by screw worm larvae, after they found tiny cracks in the skin. They are deep and had our team not been there to remove them, and treat the area, they could have done a great deal of damage to the fo****in, p***s, and other important organs. The samples of maggots taken will go to the Guanajuato State lab to prove that the parasites are there.
RVETS México will continue to help with screw worm surveillance and research methods to treat and prevent the infestations. There has always been plenty to do, but when new challenges arise we will take them on!

Providing quality veterinary care and education to underserved rural communities worldwide. Join our mission at rvets.org

05/24/2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rco1jWKrwWM
If I don't post it you may not know about RVETS Brooke USA funded project working with the Two Powers Land Collective and the Blackfeet Community College in Browning, Montana. This is innovative project, to improve the availability and quality of hoof care on the Blackfeet Reservation, is being headed by Drs. Tarek Isham and Jamie White. It all got started when a videographer and good friend of RVETS, Dawn Perrine, met Lynn Mad Plume, the founder of Two Powers, a horse based, native people led, program to improve the lives of young people on the reservation. You'll love the interview with Lynn, a brilliant Blackfoot who is making something wonderful from a personal tragedy.

"The Blackfeet Community College USDA Extension Program would like ...

05/15/2026

Waiting for their turn in Charco de Sierra
This is from a while ago, but it is so typical of Guanajuato. Rocky hillsides, mesquite and maguey, everything made of brick or stone, and it runs on b***os. The RVETS México team is all about equids, but we are not “species specific”. A cat vaccination, a cow cesarian, a dehydrated kid, a “dog-hit-by-machete”, a ewe needing some help lambing, or a cactus spine in any part of any creature you might choose. We would set up after a long drive down a dry creek bed, up a hillside, and through the narrow trails between little houses. As if there had been some kind of massive public relations campaign, everybody in every little canyon, mountain top, or rancho just seemed to know we were there without a word being spoken. From the kids and abuelas with their b***os to the young guys with their caballos, they rode, hiked, and galloped onto whatever spot they could find. Horses tied to b***os, tied to mules, tied to b***os, tied to a flimsy little water starved maguey bush would soon be populating the spaces in between the boulders. Boxes of equipment and supplies spread across the hillside the eager students and their supervisors started spreading out, reading the “papelitos” that held the key to the order that patients would be seen. Physicals were happening, mouths examined, and judgements made on the sedation/anesthesia protocol for surgeries. While this b***o does not look thrilled about its small scruffy burden, all will be handled gently, with respect, and on their way back to the mountains soon enough.

05/14/2026

Dentals from North to South
Horses, donkeys, and mules rely on their teeth to do their amazing trick of turning “plant” into “animal”. From the northern plains to the jungles of Central America, and everywhere in between, the complex anatomy and physiology that allows simple chewing to happen provides a critical point at which veterinarians and dentists can improve the lives of the draft animals that serve rural communities. While improvements in technology and science have brought hypsodont dentistry (hypsodont = the kind of teeth that equids have) into a whole new realm in the last 50 years, somebody still has to go out there and open that mouth (“a dark and dangerous tunnel”), have a good look, and do something about it! Just look at these “number 11” points! Would you like to chew up your evening ration of hay, pasture, or rastrojo with daggers like that? That is why RVETS is on the Reservations, in the Sierra Gorda, and anyplace else that we can possibly go to provide that dental care. More importantly, our students are learning that you have get out there in the prairie, the desert, the mountains, or wherever and do the work, fix the teeth, and help the animals and their people.

05/11/2026

"The Blackfeet Community College USDA Extension Program would like to extend our sincere appreciation to everyone who helped make the Hoof Care and Trimming event a success"!!!! That's the news from Montana. That is RVETS' Tarek Isham DVM on the left with the chaps. He and Jamie White DVM had been at Blackfeet doing veterinary work and teaching hoof anatomy and trimming techniques. Great job Tarek! The fellow in the middle, who I have yet to meet, is a "disabled" veteran, who works as a farrier, despite having lost a leg for his country. THAT is impressive! RVETS will be continuing this program, and extending it to other reservations. This is the sort of thing that gives one hope for the future.....e

05/11/2026

In so many parts of the world horses are not an accessory or a pet. They are essential to the livelihood of people, especially in rural communities that rely on them for transportation and work. Whether bringing clean water to a home or a bit of leña (firewood) to cook tortillas or ten gallons of milk to sell at the crossroads in Chalmeca, horses, mules, and donkeys are still the primary source of motive power in the global south. Would it be better if the folks in La Fonseca or Carmelita or Augustine Gonzales or Uaxactun or Landa Matamoros used vehicles with internal combustion engines? I don’t know, but it would cost them more, require that they become dependent on outside corporations, force them to damage the land building roads, and maybe lose a little of their souls by cutting ties to creatures that have served man for millennia. Would that be worth it? Would it be worth the increased carbon that our cars and trucks spew into the atmosphere? These are philosophical questions for which our clients and our veterinarians have no time. We are busy helping this young wrangler fulfill his mission of keeping his valued equid friends healthy. That is why he has brought his parent’s string of horses and mules to get their checkups, dentals, hoof trims, and general care. Sometimes it is just the simple things that fulfill a greater cause. This proud young man sits tall in his saddle, a picture of confidence and responsibility. Should we not all do what we can to help him? In return there are so many things about life that he can teach us.