The CW post veterinary school has been approved and is starting operations. According to the assistant to the Dean they accepted 109 veterinary students. for the fall semester.
The September 16th, 2019 meeting of the Commack Community Association was held at the Commack Public Library. Our very special guests were Carmen Fuentealba, Dean of the proposed C W Post Veterinary college and Dr. James from the Commack School District. Dr. Fuentealba was born and raised in Chili, but earned her Doctor of Veterinary medicine at Texas A+M. The presentation was about why Long Island University-CW Post Campus leased 7 acres of the Marion Carll farm , which is owned by the school district..LIU is applying to be the 4th veterinary college in the northeast . There are only 30 veterinary colleges in the United States. .
They must meet the Town of Huntington's historical building requirements. Dr James reported that the school district had installed a rubber membrane on the house roof .The barn roof was leaking and so is being repaired by LIU. They are not involved with the repair of the house.
The Veterinary school must meet 11 standards before they can be certified. They are required to have a place for students to learn to do live exams on chickens,cows,goats and horses.These animals are categorized as Food and Fiber animals.The college would keep a small herd of 10 dry cows, 10 goats and some chickens for 10 students at a time, to practice medical exams on the animals. A dry cow does not produce milk and so daily milking is not required. . The livestock for the college must be purchased from USDA approved vendors. Of course, there will be livestock manure management. Manure would be sold to a processing plant and removed from the farm property. Sherman Carll, nephew to Marion Carll ,mentioned that there had been a
full dairy operation on 90 acres of the farm when he was a boy.
The Hoyt Farm ranger, Jeff, who attended the meeting mentioned that there is a real need for veterinarians to properly care for livestock on Long Island. He mentioned that in Northport, a farm is flying in a vet from Texas who can properly care for some farm animals .Long Island has many little zoos and farms with livestock.
As far as benefiting our town,students from the high school might intern at the farm.Younger students would visit the animals on field trips. Jeff,the Hoyt Farm ranger expressed an interest in displaying a carriage that is sitting in the barn. The superintendent responded happily "lets get together and talk about this".
As an addendum, Western Boces had run an animal husbandry program on this property before the program was eliminated.