Published: July 28, 2006 08:25 am      

Not horsin’ around

Mobile vet enjoys freedom of the road

Thursday, July 27, 2006 — Amy Betka removed a single sheet of paper from the wireless printer in her downstairs home office, made a few notes, and turned around smiling.

“Sorry I missed you earlier,” she said.

“I was working with some donkeys when you called.”

Betka is the owner and operator of Bear Creek Mobile Veterinary Services, a large animal medical practice, the only thing she can really see herself ever doing.

She works with animals most vets can’t reasonably accommodate and she does it all by house-call or at her home.

The sheet of paper from the fax contained lab results from the previous day’s blood work on a llama-like camelid creature called an Alpaca.

Such facimiles are not uncommon for the 30-year-old New London resident who runs the only mobile veterinary service based in Stanly County.

She’s stays at it with a passion and her practice, which boasts no hospital or clinic, is unique in several ways.

She is a woman in a field heavily dominated by man, she runs a completely mobile practice, she works with her husband and she cares for more alpacas in a week than most N.C. practices care for in a year.

Don’t call Betka's service when your poodle needs a rabies vaccine, she works on horses, cows, sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas and pot-bellied pigs and once even examined an elephant.

But somehow Betka always seems to end up back in a local field with an Alpaca, a fact she’s fine with.

“North Carolina has a large concentration of Alpacas in this area,” she said.

“More practitioners are starting to realize that and the number of practices who are willing to, and trained to, see them is growing.”

Even so, Betka is one of few veterinary practitioners who actually have experience with the unusual creatures.

Prized for their supple fleece or fiber, Alpacas are true enigmas in the veterinary world.

“They don’t respond to a lot of the same diseases as horses, cows and other large animals,” Betka said.

“It takes a lot of experience looking at a lot of animals and learning quickly from mistakes to feel comfortable working with them.”

The physiology and fiber of Alpacas is different from most animals and the price tag on one can range from $10,000 to $50,000, so Betka's knowledge is all the more valuable.

Using a large modified four-door diesel truck as a mobile base of operations Betka carries a little bit of everything with her.

Three day a week that includes her husband, Robert who assists. Other days he manages the office and maintains stock and inventory.

From antibiotics to bandages and ointments to instruments that look like medieval torture devices, the truck is stocked with whatever Betka might need for a routine or emergency response.

“They say you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” Betka said, holding up a cylindrical metal device with long tube attached.

“This is how I make him drink.”

Sometimes it’s through gentle coaxing or the aid of special equipment and other times calls require a bit more force.

A story the Betka family will surely tell their son one day deals with the week of his birth, which began with a pregnant and dying cow.

At nine months pregnant herself, Betka, along with Robert, responded to the farm.

Without too much detail; a pregnant vet, a pregnant and dying cow, a cesarean section for the cow, a cut arm for the vet, and unexpected twins for the cow will help move the story along.

The art of femininity is something Betka enjoys when she’s not on the job, but she’s just as at home covered in the mud and the blood and the muck that come with large animal medical care.

“If I can walk into a restaurant and no one is offended by the look or smell of me, then I’ve had a very light day,” she said.

Betka and her husband, Robert, both graduated from N.C. State University with degrees in animal science in 1998 and both have extensive experience working with large animals.

Robert, a former cattle manager at Murphy’s Family Farm, former extension agent and former USDA livestock marketer is Amy’s office manager and field technician.

Amy, spent eight years in college and went on to spend countless hours in the field working with a large animal vet practice with an 11-county response area.

After taking advantage of the opportunity to learn and gain valuable experience she also realized she was spending more time traveling away from her family than she wanted.

Her mobile veterinary service keeps non-emergency hours from 8:30 to 4:30 Monday through Friday takes emergencies outside those hours.

“One of the reasons I got into this,” Betka said casting an eye toward her two-year-old son’s upstairs room, “is for the quality of life for me and my family.”

“I am based in Stanly County and Stanly County is my preferred practice area.”