posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2018 in Swine Health Services News
What was once Frankfort’s lone bowling alley has already began its transformation into being the new facility for Audubon Manning Veterinary Clinic Swine Health Services.
Sitting vacant since it closed a few years ago, the building formerly known as Revolutions Bowling Center at 2800 E. Wabash St. has been purchased by AMVC Swine Health Services’ Dr. Max Rodibaugh and Dr. Jeff Harker with the intention of moving in after outgrowing their current location at 1610 W. Armstrong St.
“Our facility is small and cramped,” Rodibaugh said. “We have needed to do something for some time. We needed more space for storage of products because we do dispense vaccines, pharmaceuticals and products to our producers.”
Rodibaugh graduated from Purdue University’s veterinary school in 1977 and opened Swine Health Services in 1980. At the time, it was one of the first swine-exclusive practices in the country. Harker graduated from Purdue in 1994 and became a partner in 2001.
In Jan. 2016, Swine Health Services agreed to be purchased by AMVC and has been known by AMVC Swine Health Services ever since.
“With AMVC being a larger entity, they needed more space than what we had,” Rodibaugh said. “This happened to be a nice space and a good location. It will give us space to work and space for a conference room where we bring in clients or have educational seminars. Whatever we want to have, we will have plenty of space here to do that. And the warehouse space will give us much more space for products.”
AMVC Swine Health Services has an emphasis on preventative care and establishing vaccination protocols. They serve clients ranging from family farms to cooperatives and even 4-H pig owners.
“We are a consulting practice,” Rodibaugh said. “When we started out, the goal was to do preventative medicine. We try to set up programs for producers to prevent problems. We also monitor for disease and health. We consult and work with producers to keep them profitable, to keep the pigs healthy and to keep the food supply safe. That is always important to us.”
Together, Rodibaugh and Harker help keep over a million hogs across the county healthy.
“We probably go over a couple hundred different farm sites and also have maybe over 60,000 sows, then almost that many market hogs that are associated with that many sows,” Harker said. “So, there are probably over a million-and-a- half or so market hogs that we are helping with some way or another.”
Harker said that local residents need not be concerned that hogs will be housed in any way inside the large building.
“It will be office space and warehouse space for products sold for hog farmers to use – vaccines, medications, possibly water and feed medications down the line,” Harker said. “We will collect some samples here, but there will not be live animals here on a day-to- day basis at all. There will not be a surgery suite here. We will not be disposing carcasses here or anything. We will have an office out front and a warehouse in the back.
“In our small space we have now, we never had a walk-in cooler,” he added. “We have a lot of stuff that has to be kept refrigerated, and we kept it in noisy old coolers. Everybody would try to talk on the phone and couldn’t hear because the cooler was running. So, this will let us get a walk-in cooler with an outside con- denser. So, it will be a much quieter office than we have now and a much nicer space once it is finished.”
Rodibaugh believes local residents will be pleased with what the shuttered bowling alley will become over the next year.
“I think it is good that we are re-purposing an old building,” he said. “It had been sitting empty for over two years. People will be pleased with how it looks, and there will not be a huge amount of traffic. There will be less traffic coming through here than there was when it was a bowling alley. “(AMVC) built a new clinic in Iowa that is really nice-looking,” he added. “I expect, once they get the exterior re-skinned, it will look similar to that. We hope to get the new covering on the building before the winter, so new steel and a new roof. Other than that, we don’t know what the timeline will be. Hopefully, by this time next year, we will be in it.”
Story credit to: Aaron Kennedy, Frankfort Times, 10/4/18
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