Dirty Jobs (2005) s01e03 Episode Script
Roadkill Cleaners
1 Coming up on "dirty jobs," I take the plunge with a couple of entrepreneurs who hope their dirty job will make them filthy rich because there's big bucks in bad swings.
I get a crash course in roadkill cleanup.
That looks so good.
And learn that it takes more than just a strong stomach to keep our highways and byways carcass-free.
This is what we call an artificial vagina.
I also get a chance to play fertility doctor at a world-class horse-breeding ranch.
Hey, nice working with you.
And learn what it takes to produce a true champion.
Sorry, honey, I gotta push a little.
[ Whinnies .]
They're repulsive Repellent Raunchy and rank.
They're dirty jobs.
Rowe: Oh, god.
It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it [ coughs .]
It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it -- captions by vitac -- captions paid for by discovery communications, inc.
Rowe: It happens every day in golf courses across the country.
Thousands of duffers hook, slice, and shank millions of perfectly good golf balls into lakes, streams, ponds, and water hazards.
But if you think these golf balls are destined to spend an eternity in a watery grave, think again, because the fellows who work here at the golfball depot in tampa, Florida, have figured out a way to turn lost balls into found money.
Hi, how's it going? All right.
How are you doing? Good.
So this is John Paul St.
John, one of the partners here at golfball depot, right? May I call you John Paul St.
John? Or j.
P.
J.
p.
, it is.
What goes on here at the golfball depot? We're basically a golf ball recycling plant.
We go out, we get the balls, we bring them back, we process them, clean them, sort them, package them, sell them here in our store and ship them all over the world.
Where do you get the balls? At the bottom of ponds and lakes.
On golf courses.
When do you do it? Almost every day, five days a week.
Is this one of those days? Yeah.
You want to go get some? I thought you'd never ask.
After you.
Lakes and ponds.
Nice place.
Right next to the interstate.
And this is great.
This is the golfball depot transport? Yeah, you get to ride with the gear in the back.
Got it.
All right.
Well, I'll just hop in.
Hop in.
Have a seat.
Yeah, it looks nice.
What happened to -- is this rust? No.
One of the guys that used to work for the company spit his tobacco juice on the wall.
Great.
Maybe we'll do a little golfing while we're there, huh? Maybe we will.
Great.
See you around.
J.
p.
, his partner, Andy, and I headed straight to the magnolia valley golf club.
The numerous water hazards on this 110-acre facility are home to thousands of golf balls, dozens of snapping turtles, snakes, and a resident alligator named Samson.
It's on right, right? Yeah, you got it on right.
Do they make these in a husky? You got the husky.
No shoes? No shoes 'cause we're going to teach you how to pick them up with your feet as well as hands.
If you have booties on, then you won't be able to feel them.
I'll take care of the jokes, j.
P.
No, I'm serious.
Really? Oh, all right.
Well, never mind then.
When you get in here, there's a lot of mud.
And you fan with your hands through the mud until you feel something hard and you grab on to it, and it's going to be a golf ball.
Now, if it moves, you let it go.
It might be a small gator, it might be a snapping turtle, it might be a snake, but all these things are bad, you want to let it go.
You ready to do this? Yeah? What's biting me? Probably red ants.
All right, we're going in.
You want to slide in because if you try to step in, you might fall down.
Sliding in.
And just feel with your hands for the balls.
You're kidding.
Ah, you know, that stinks! Oh, it does.
Oh! J.
p.
! Well, our work is done here.
I'll see you guys -- we want you to fill that bag up.
I just found three right by you.
I found four by you.
I don't think you're doing a very thorough job.
I got some more mud.
Oh, guys, this is really disgusting! I mean, no kidding.
What am I smelling? It smells -- methane gas.
It's worse than [bleep.]
what I'm smelling.
You getting the hang of it? No, not really.
I understand the concept -- reach down and pick up a ball.
But this whole snapping turtle, alligator, water moccasin, copper head algorithm has got me thinking twice, to be honest.
I don't understand how you're going three feet down into the mud.
You'll get the hang of it once you get golf ball fever.
I'll let you know when that happens.
What are the symptoms again? Dreaming about it.
You dream about golf balls, do ya? You can't leave the course until your bag's full.
Okay.
Well, I'm not quite there yet, with the fever.
There's a trifecta.
I like the triples.
I think you're getting the hang of it.
You ever lose your bag of balls? That's got to be frustrating.
An alligator grabbed my bag of balls one time.
An alligator grabbed this thing and pulled you under? When I was sitting on the bank, he came up, chomped down to try to get me but grabbed the bag.
The bag is what saved me.
There we go.
Whoa! Hee hee hee hee.
Not a golf ball but interesting, nevertheless.
Oh, crap! You didn't do so well.
It's my first time! Now, there's a gator known to hang out in this area.
So, what I like to do is Slap the water with the bag a couple of times.
If he's riding around, he might stick his head up and at least then we know where he's at.
Do you still go in? Yeah, we still go in.
Oh, man! Andy: If the gator comes up on you, go for the eyes.
It's the only thing that really affects them.
Their skin's so rough, it's like leather.
If you had a knife, it wouldn't even help.
But the eyes are like, a foot past the teeth -- yeah, you gotta get over the teeth first.
J.
p.
: I'll show you how to grab with your feet.
You isolate down the bottom, you put it between your feet.
Yeah.
Yeah, like a monkey.
Like a monkey.
A golf ball monkey.
Oh, oh! Look, ma, no hands.
You did good.
You did good.
I'm disappointed again.
After getting my feet wet, it was time to venture into deeper waters.
That will keep the leeches out of your ears.
The what out of my where? I geared up and plunged into the murky depths, in search of more sunken treasures.
Well, it looks like Andy and I got about 500 apiece.
Let's check your bag.
Not so much.
Maybe 30.
So, I take the balls, leave the tank? Yeah.
"Take the gun, leave the cannolis.
" Remember that one? No? Little film.
After a long day on the links, I was about to learn that bagging the balls is only half the battle.
Coming up next, I get a behind-the-scenes tour of j.
P.
'S not so high-tech processing facility.
This is Dr.
Seuss.
And later, I hit the road in search of some unfortunate animals that, well, hit the road.
Oh, dear! After spending the morning treasure hunting for golf balls, it was back to home base Where the real fun began.
You thought the other job was dirty, this one's just about the same.
Yeah, but there are no crocodiles in there or alligators or whatever the hell that thing was.
That was funny how we were over there getting the balls with that gator in the pond.
Yeah, that was hysterical, Andy.
As far as humor goes, that's right up there with the Marx brothers, three stooges, all of them.
Is this a special solution or something? Yeah, we got pool chemicals in it usually.
This one's chlorine.
This one's muriatic acid.
We're going to soak them here for about an hour and a half, and then we'll come back here and wash them up.
All right, now the washing begins.
This is the washing machine.
Yes, this is our golf ball washing machine.
The balls come and go in one end, pop out the other.
This obviously is very high-tech here.
What, did you tear that off one of the mobile homes across the street there? I think he does.
All right.
Uh-oh.
There's a little malfunction at the junction here.
So, we just keep doing this till we're done? It's just a cycle.
A cycle, like a big old maytag.
That's right.
All right.
Now what? Now it's time to sort them, and I'm going to take you over to the Dr.
Seuss.
The Dr.
Seuss? Grab yourself a crate and we'll get started.
Time to sort 'em.
What in the hell happened here? This is Dr.
Seuss.
This is Dr.
Seuss? No, this is Dr.
Seuss! This is mondo! Hey, mondo, how are you? What -- what did you do here? It looks like a science project or something.
Is it alive? Mondo: It could be.
Right now he's sorting all of the balls.
Each one has its own designed crate for it where you sort each ball into a name brand.
And once you sort it into name brand, you'll have to sort it into a different grade.
But it's just one of the many steps of getting the balls in and processing.
You really are like a machine, you know that? You could probably do this in your sleep, couldn't you? Yeah, sometimes.
I got an xl 3,000 right here.
Xl 3,000.
Think I could hit it from here? Try it.
Oh! Ah, well.
Pro.
Very nice.
All right, j.
P.
, so, we've retrieved them, we've washed them, and we've sorted them.
Now what? Typically, we go to our packaging facility.
The packaging facility, where's that? Right here on the sofa.
Okay! So, you guys sit down here with your washed and sorted balls, flip on the discovery channel and do a little packaging? That's right.
12 to a bag in this case? Yes, 12 to a bag.
J.
p.
, this is not really working out the way I hoped here.
No, I don't think that would pass quality control.
I'll start over.
There we go.
That's right.
So, then from the packaging facility back -- oh, of course, I remember this, the retail.
Out to the retail site.
J.
p.
, Andy, and their crew collect and clean more than a million golf balls a year with an average resale value of a dollar a ball.
This dirty job just might make these young entrepreneurs filthy rich.
These are only $3 a dozen.
3 bucks a dozen.
How come these are 5 bucks a dozen? Different brand.
We separate them into over 50 different brands.
14 bucks is almost as good as it gets here, huh? This is what they call a high pro-line ball and these retail for close to $50.
His and hers.
Blue and pink, very nice.
These here are what they call night balls.
It's got a little hole in the middle, and you can put a little glow stick in it so you can play golf at night.
So, what's the difference with the $5 balls here and the $6 balls? About a dollar.
Gotcha.
This kills me.
You've got golf tips up here.
Why would you want to give people tips on how to golf properly? It's a golf store and we're golf-oriented, but we know that putting the tips up there really aren't going to help anybody.
The balls are going in the water anyway.
People are that bad.
But not all of the balls that j.
P.
And Andy collect end up on store shelves.
The seventh level of hell for a golf ball is an eternity on the driving range.
Those that don't make the cut are striped and sold in bulk to golf courses around the world.
Rowe: The artist at work.
Hey.
So, you're making range balls.
We're taking the low-end balls.
We're putting a stripe on them with some red dye, put them on the drying rack and we package them up, ship them out to driving ranges.
I can get a rhythm going sometimes.
Holy crap.
Look at you go.
You're like some kind of savant.
It's boring work, but it has to be done, too.
So, on a good day, when you've got your rhythm down, how many of these do you do? I try not to do more than 4,000 or 5,000 in a day.
From moving your leg up and down, you'll get a backache.
So, if you're not gathering, you're striping, if you're not striping, you're washing, if you're not washing, you're sorting? And if you're doing any of the above, you're probably sweating because it gets hot in here.
You know what else is nice about this -- the fumes.
The fumes are nice.
It has a pleasant effect after I'd say the 3,000 or 4,000th ball.
Very peaceful.
Very nice.
You press the pedal and it presses this lever and then you undo the pedal while you let go of the ball.
Probably want to have it over here, don't I? Everyone has to develop their own technique at this.
Yeah, right now, I'm conspicuously absent of one.
It's perfect! Try again.
Drop it And then snag it.
You're a natural.
Oh, that's a natural mess.
Let 'em up and out.
What am I doing wrong? I'm overshooting.
Like I said, everybody needs to gain their own technique at it.
After the first few thousand, I think you'll get a hang of it.
Oh.
It's perfect.
It is.
It's insane.
What -- now, that would look great on a Christmas tree, admit it.
Let me try with the right hand.
See if I'm any better with that.
Ow! Now what? You need a towel.
What a stupid job.
Now there's a golf ball you could be proud of.
So, thanks to the hard-working guys at the golfball depot, thousands of abandoned and neglected golf balls are now enjoying a whole new lease on life.
Oh! I'll let j.
P.
Get that one.
Next, on "dirty jobs," it's animals versus cars, and guess who wins.
And later, I get way too familiar with a thoroughbred stud with one thing on his mind.
We all know why the chicken crossed the road -- to get to the other side.
Unfortunately, getting to the other side isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Today I'm hitting the road with two of the Ohio department of transportation's finest -- Dean mische and Ricky hissong.
They pick up roadkill.
Rowe: How long you reckon it's been here? I'd say a couple days.
Couple days? Doesn't look so good.
No, doesn't look good at all.
Nope.
Rowe: So, guys, how do we pick this up? A one and a two-a.
You just pretty much Take him and This is where the lift gate comes in handy.
Oh, you just put him on the gate.
Keeps him off of you.
They used to -- oh, that's handy.
I thought we were going to have to throw him up in the air.
Daggone it.
That's a mess.
Mische: Well, it's a sad thing.
But a lot of times they don't even have a spot on them hardly.
But maybe it breaks a neck or a leg or something.
This one's got a spot on him.
Yeah, yeah.
So, we're off to get another one.
Unfortunately.
Yeah.
In an average year, Dean and Ricky clean up almost 1,000 dead deer, possums, raccoons, and other unfortunate critters.
Some are in better shape than others.
Oh.
This ain't good, Dean.
Well, it just goes to show how the life cycle works, I guess.
How fresh? Fresh might not be the right word, but Yeah, it's a little more on the stale side, I'd say.
This smells bad.
There's times that you have to either laugh or throw up, whatever comes first, which you might as well laugh 'cause -- well, I tell you what, you laugh, I'll throw up, and then later on, we'll switch off, it'll be great.
We'll be giggling and vomiting all day.
Oh, man! I mean, it is kind of funny when you take people out and they start gagging.
Yeah, that's comedy right there, Dean.
Oh, boy.
So, we don't -- we're not worried about cleaning up these maggots before we take the deer back? No, they're just part of the program.
That's a lot of maggots.
This smells bad.
I mean, in the scheme of things, is this a bad-smelling deer or does it get much worse? I'd give it a five.
On a scale of what? Oh, well.
That means they get a lot stinkier than this.
I've had them on the back of the truck and somebody following me down the highway and have to stay back about a half a mile to a mile because they could smell them in the truck.
Oh, gosh! Oh, dear.
I guess it's not going to move itself, huh? Well, kind of slowly.
It's easier to drag them forward against the hair.
All right.
There you go.
You got some company.
It's almost time for lunch, ain't it? I think I'll pass.
Tell you what, bad day to be a deer.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, that's a buck, all right.
I guess the buck stopped here.
Are we done? Well, for now, at least picking them up.
I don't think the truck can hold much more.
Well I guess maybe it could then, huh? We've had as many as, I think, 15 one day.
Get out of here, 15? Not saying all on the truck at one time, but, you know, picked that many up in one day.
You might be asking yourself, "what do you do with a truckful of dead deer?" Well, they're brought here, to the Ashland county composting facility where they're turned into mulch.
Rowe: This would be the final resting place, huh? Yeah.
All right.
So, the deer in the truck are going to go in here, right? Want to drag it right off? Yep.
Oh, boy.
That's a mess.
The carcasses are unloaded, stacked and covered with a couple tons of sawdust.
Eventually, they decompose into a nutritious compost.
Well, there it is -- some of Ohio's roadkill might be destined for your garden or your flowerpots maybe.
So, the next time you're watering your begonias or pruning your petunias, you might just want to kneel and say a little prayer.
Next, on dirty jobs, I check into the mare motel and probe the mysteries of artificial insemination.
Rowe: It's early morning at the Babcock ranch, very dreadfully early.
But a great time to collect some horse semen.
Located just outside of Dallas, Texas, Babcock ranch is one of the premier horse-breeding facilities in the world.
Here, more than 300 cutting and reining horses are produced each year.
But don't get the wrong idea.
This isn't some free-love, hedonistic, equine playboy ranch.
Unh-unh, it's all about pure bloodlines and science.
This is what we call an artificial vagina, or sometimes a boot.
Dr.
Khris Crowe is the director of the artificial insemination program here at Babcock ranch.
This is attached to a receptacle, which in all honesty, is a baby bottle, and it has a plastic liner in it and this is what we're going to use to collect the semen from the stallion.
This is going to be our tease mare this morning.
She's in sexual receptivity today.
In other words, she's in heat, and so she's here to provide a little bit of stimulus for our stallion that we're going to collect.
So, the stallion -- or "paid by chick" -- is going to be led in here, and the mare's going to be positioned somehow back in here? Yes.
All of our stallions we collect artificially by allowing them to come into this area, get ready, be washed, and then they come in and actually mount what we call a phantom.
Kind of like a pummel horse, if you'll pardon the pun.
That is what it looks like.
And we'll keep our recipient mare right in front of him so that he's got visual stimulus very naturally.
You make it sound so romantic.
Well, it does have to be a little romantic or we couldn't get it done.
But before the semen can be collected, the artificial vagina has to be cleaned and prepped.
How do you know exactly what paid by chick likes in the way of an artificial vagina? Is he particular? Dr.
Crowe: Too hot, too tight, too cold, and too loose will be bad enough that you will not get a collection.
Things could go wrong any number of ways.
All right.
Horacio's working with one, so, can he change the size of this to the point where this will accommodate any of the stallions? You do not allow artificial vaginas to be passed or shared between stallions.
In fact, if you'll open this cabinet right behind you here This one, under lock and key? You will see that each stallion -- holy cow! Look at that! Just like in the Wal-Mart all the way back in the prescription aisle, only these are larger.
Every stallion does have his own artificial vagina.
They're marked with that stallion's name, and, of course, after use, they're cleaned, they're dried, and they're stored in a dustless cabinet.
"Smart aristocrat," "genuine legacy," "lean with me" -- that's funny.
Who belongs to -- this is a -- different stallions have different anatomy to their reproductive tract and some stallions require longer artificial vaginas and some of them shorter.
It's the way of things.
It is natural.
With everything set, it was time to go to work.
Well, there's our boy.
[ Whinnying .]
He's announcing himself to his mares.
Yes, he certainly is! Well, if we're going to let you do this, Mike, we'll give you some head protection.
All right.
This is a bicycle helmet, basically.
Yeah, just in case you were to take a blow to the back of the head nothing bad would happen to you.
You realize this doesn't fit me at all.
I know.
Sorry.
And so the first thing we're gonna let you do is wash the horse.
Cotton over here? Should I take the bucket with me? No, just a handful of cotton, and you're gonna put that in your right hand.
All right.
Do I wring it out at all? Come back to me avoiding the horse's hindquarters.
There you go.
Approach him at the shoulder.
Lay your left hand on his withers so he knows that you're there.
Hey, boy, I'm here.
It's just me.
And then just drape your hand all across his rib cage, all the way down, deflect and wash.
Deflect and wash.
Deflect and wash.
Okay.
That like so? That's very good.
Thank you.
That's a clean horse right there.
You could eat off that horse.
[ Whinnies .]
Nothing to see here.
Nothing to see here.
You know what, I think my helmet scared him.
And I say that because my helmet scares me a little.
Okay.
We're gonna give you the artificial vagina, and you're gonna hold this in your left hand.
We're gonna let the horse mount.
Don't turn your back on him.
Keep your eyes on him at all times.
Don't go up there too soon.
We'll let him get all the way up on the dummy.
You're gonna deflect with your right hand, and place the artificial vagina all the way onto his penis and then just hold steady.
[ Neighs .]
I believe that horse is ready.
There you go.
Go right ahead.
Going to deflect with the right.
All the way up into his groin.
And just hold steady.
I'm holding steady.
Feel free to come on over here, doctor.
You're doing great.
I'll stay back here where it's safe.
Push up into his groin.
Push it on him hard.
There, excellent.
One, two, three -- you're getting ejaculatory jets -- four, five.
Let him fall out of the boot.
There you go.
And you're good.
Excellent! Really excellent! Yeah? All right.
Give it up, huh? You're hired.
I'll wash later.
Man! Hey, nice working with you! He's exhausted.
This looks like about 30 ccs, or one ounce of semen.
He generally gives us anywhere from 200 to 300 million sperm per mil.
So, this is very easily going to be enough for us to breed 8 or 10 mares.
How much is this worth? The bag itself? No, no, the contents.
Yeah.
I know where to get the bag, doctor.
That bag right there's probably worth $25,000.
And it could all be yours if the price is right.
[ Both laugh .]
Good horsey.
Wow, that horse is a stud.
I'll never be the same again.
Better for the experience, I'm sure.
Yeah, I hope the horse feels the same way.
After we've taken our collection, we want to evaluate what we've got.
We know that it takes 500 million sperm to optimally get a mare pregnant.
So, the first step is to count the semen.
You just put a tiny, tiny bit onto that thing there.
And now it's been inserted, so this is -- it's counting it right now? That's exactly right, and there's 133 million sperm cells in every milliliter of our collection that we got.
What's the next step? We're gonna take a look at it on a microscope and find out just how our sperm are looking here.
We actually will be able to see it on the monitor here.
Oh, cool.
We do have a large number of sperm, and those that are alive and are swimming are actually moving so quickly, you'll see them get out of your field of vision very fast.
What's this guy? What's that? That's an air bubble, and it's being moved around by the motion of the sperm itself.
You see a lot of velocity.
It's good that they're blurs.
Look at that.
That dude is a superstar.
Look at him go! Coming up next, once you've got the sperm, you need someplace to put it.
And I look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.
The 300 stallions, mares, and foals at the Babcock ranch need to be kept in peak physical condition, and that means attending to every aspect of their health, even their teeth.
What are we doing, just a regular teeth cleaning? And this is Casper? Casper is a little sedated right now.
Yes, we don't want Casper to worry about this procedure, so we're going to let him have pleasant memories of everything we're going to do today.
So, this is the speculum.
That's exactly right.
We'll put his head up here.
And I'm gonna get a headlight on, and you'll be able to actually look in and take a look in a horse's mouth the way few people ever see it.
Look at that.
24 premolars and molars all to grind hay and grass and grain with.
I found my keys.
It's absolutely painless, but, of course, it's got a sound and it's got a vibration.
Good boy.
Spit.
There's smoke coming out of the horse's mouth.
What you're doing is you're taking off enamel points, and it pulverizes those points.
It's not really smoke.
It's really tooth dust.
Stand by, here we go.
Really good.
Is it safe? We might wash his mouth out.
Well, horses don't floss, naturally.
No, they don't.
But they've got no thumbs.
There's no opposable thumb.
You can't floss.
That's exactly right, so we'll just rinse his mouth.
And I don't have a big porcelain spit cup.
I noticed that.
I mean, I think we can all relate to that, right? The dentist -- he says "spit" and it goes right on your shirt.
That's exactly what we did.
The sedative I gave him has a great deal of euphoria.
He'll remember this as a very pleasant experience and look forward to his next dental.
So, this is like horsey nitrous oxide? Very much like it.
Nice.
After playing dentist with Casper, my next date at Babcock ranch was with a feisty mare looking for a little action.
Dr.
Crowe: This is a mare that we're actually going to breed to paid by chick using the semen that we collected.
So, Mike, if you will, go ahead and use our hose and clean her up a little bit.
We'll use some soap and a knuckle wash and a rinse.
A knuckle wash? They like the knuckles, do they? We don't want your fingertips to actually go inside the mare, so we're gonna ask you to close your hand and just use the knuckles of your hand to wash her up nice and clean, rinse again, and then we'll dry her and she'll be ready.
This is the washing guy here? That is correct.
All righty, just a little squirt in there.
Huh? Good? Perfect.
Great.
Get you a little soap from right here.
This is soap? All right.
Put a little in there.
There we go.
Looks like teriyaki sauce.
All right and, uh, knuckles? Please.
Pretty please.
Okay.
Oh.
You want to be sure and get deep into the folds.
That's where most of the dirt is.
Naturally.
Let's get this vulva nice and new, shiny and new.
Do they get shiny? Sure.
If you rub them enough, I suppose they do.
We like shiny heinies! We're gonna ask you to rinse that again really well.
You mean my hand or the -- I'm not as concerned about your hand as I am the mare.
If you would, please, just take a paper towel and get her dry.
Paper towel.
There you go.
That is a clean vulva, doctor.
Nice, nice job.
I mean, I think, as vulvas go.
That will be quite satisfactory.
Dr.
Crowe: We're gonna put some lube on you all the way, give you some in the palm of your hand as well.
Gonna let it drop there and not touch you.
We're gonna give you a sterile insemination pipette, which is just a big, long plastic straw, so I'm going to take it out of the sleeve.
And you now can grasp it with your sterile hand down here toward the tip.
So this hand can touch this end of the straw.
Put the straw in your hand with your fingertips over the top of it like this, there you go, and pull the tail to the side, Jess.
All the way to the side, there we go.
Thanks, Jess.
You're simply going to introduce that past the lips of the vulva.
That's this area, here, of course.
Stay dorsal, stay toward her spine, stay up high.
We don't want you to get down on the floor of the vagina.
That's where the opening to the urethra is.
You'll end up in her urinary bladder, and she's liable to express herself all over you.
Sorry, honey, I've got to push a little.
And on the front end of the vaginal vault, you should be able to find the cervix -- the cervix will be a long, tubular structure.
Is it round? Yes, round.
I'm in.
I'm in.
We're going to let you now with your left hand attach that Syringe to the end of your pipette.
You're actually going to just inseminate this mare.
Just by pushing this? This is it? Mm-hmm.
There we go.
Good.
All the way.
There you are.
And then just bring everything back with you.
Very good.
Very good.
Okay.
You have just made Babcock ranch another horse.
Thank you very much.
That's my boy! Yeah! Or my girl, if you will.
Your girl! Either way, who knows? As long as she's healthy.
If you thought artificial insemination was the end-all, be-all of the breeding process, think again, because once an embryo is successfully formed, it has to be removed and transplanted into a surrogate mare.
You might think of it as an equine assembly line.
What are you doing here? On these horses that we're about to work on, we need to do a rectal examination.
So we're going to take all of the manure that's in the rectum and we're going to remove it.
That's nice.
Let's walk over here and, you know, introduce ourselves.
Tell me what these guys are doing, too.
This is Jesse and horacio.
And as soon as we've evacuated the rectum, they're going to go ahead and put these tails up and wash these mares for an embryo-transfer procedure.
We've got, "cowgirls are smart" on the right, and we've got "Bobbi" on the left.
And hopefully if things go well today, we're going to pull an embryo from cowgirls are smart and give it to Bobbi.
Bobbi is our surrogate mare.
She's gonna be the mother for the next 11 months.
Just reach right on in there, do you? Good girl.
Oh, my goodness.
Oh! Jeez! Do you want me to hold your feet or something? Okay.
We're going to need a bucket right behind you, Mike.
Yeah, let me get that.
There you go.
In the process of flushing her embryo from her, I'm going to need to go rectally on her to apply some pressure to her reproductive organs.
And when I go in there, I don't want any manure to be coming out and contaminating our situation, because we need a very sterile process to get her embryo.
We'll do this mare as well.
Pretty much all looks the same though, doesn't it? I can identify most our horses from this angle.
[ Laughs .]
You gotta get out more! Ah, yeah.
I'm going it take this into the mare's vagina, pass it through her cervix.
Once it's through her cervix, we're going to blow up this balloon with some fluid so that it cannot come back out.
Then just close your hand, make a fist, Mike.
Now you're a cervix.
And as we use this, this will not allow the balloon to come back out.
From this procedure, then, we can put flush solution into the mare's uterus where the embryo is living and then stop and allow that fluid to come back out.
And as we put fluid in and collect the fluid back out, we're going to hope that the embryo floats into the fluid, comes back out our tubing, and we're gonna catch it in a cup -- actually, you're going to collect it in a cup.
I'm going to catch the embryo? We hope you do.
I played baseball for years.
My hand-eye is fantastic.
You know, as a veterinarian, this is my favorite thing to do because it's entirely creative.
You're not working with horses that are sick or lame or injured.
You're working with perfectly happy, healthy horses, and you're making more happy, healthy horses, and, um, it's wonderful.
Yeah.
So, I've put the foley catheter through the cervix.
It's into her uterus.
Jesse's gonna inflate that balloon for me.
I'll pull back to make sure we've got a nice seal.
And we'll Simply then put some of that fluid inside.
What's it feel like? It's very soft and very warm.
We're going to let about 500, 600 mils of fluid go into the uterus, and then we'll turn this off.
And we're going to have Jesse show you how to collect into this embryo-trapping filter cup.
And then we're going to let you do it.
Okay? And we're just going to collect fluid back.
Beautiful.
Nice, clean flush.
That's good.
That sound is coming from the cup and not Jesse, right? That's exactly right.
Okay.
Then she's pretty much given us all she's going to give us back.
We don't have it yet.
We'll do three of these flushes.
And tell you what, Mike, we'll have you replace where Jesse is.
We'll let you hold the cup, put some more fluid in her, and we'll see if we can get an embryo back.
Now, don't spill it, don't let it overflow, and for goodness' sake, don't drop it.
You act like this is my first day with an embryo transfer or something! Here you go.
Good.
Now, if it look like it's getting too full, just raise the cup up.
Raise it up.
Got a good, nice, fast flow.
That's really good.
We got an embryo? Where is it? We'll go look on the scope and see if we can see it.
This little guy here? Son of a gun.
Don't drop the embryo.
Don't drop the embryo.
Dr.
Crowe: And that is a whole 8-day horse embryo.
We're going to wash it two more times.
The idea being that we're going to get this as clean and sterile as we can possibly make it.
And the next thing we're going to do is, uh, get it -- ready for church! Get it loaded into the instrument that will then put it into our surrogate mare.
And now, Mike, you're holding an entire 8-day-old embryo.
You have a whole horse in the straw of that pipette.
We are going to put it into Bobbi as our surrogate mare, and she's going carry the pregnancy for us.
Okay, come on this side for me, Mike.
I'm going to take the instrument and the inner sleeve, and I'll going to let you hang onto the outer sleeve for me.
The pipette.
Leave it to the French to come up with something like this.
We're going to introduce this into the mare's vagina.
And then once we're in the cervix, this is a little plunger that will hit that column of talc, and as I depress this, the embryo is being deposited into her uterus.
We'll bring the whole procedure back out.
And we'll be checking this mare in five days.
And in five days, we'll know if she's going to accept that embryo, if she's gonna nurture that embryo, and if she's gonna become pregnant and then carry and produce a baby for us next year.
Well, all in all, it's been quite an adventure here at the Babcock ranch.
I learned a great deal about the miracle of life Perhaps a little too much.
[ Neighing .]
I collected semen from a thoroughbred stallion, and I knuckle-washed a prize mare And I stuck my hand deep inside of places where your hand should, well, never, ever really go.
Yeah, it's a dirty job, but frankly, next time, somebody else can do it.
I get a crash course in roadkill cleanup.
That looks so good.
And learn that it takes more than just a strong stomach to keep our highways and byways carcass-free.
This is what we call an artificial vagina.
I also get a chance to play fertility doctor at a world-class horse-breeding ranch.
Hey, nice working with you.
And learn what it takes to produce a true champion.
Sorry, honey, I gotta push a little.
[ Whinnies .]
They're repulsive Repellent Raunchy and rank.
They're dirty jobs.
Rowe: Oh, god.
It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it [ coughs .]
It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it -- captions by vitac -- captions paid for by discovery communications, inc.
Rowe: It happens every day in golf courses across the country.
Thousands of duffers hook, slice, and shank millions of perfectly good golf balls into lakes, streams, ponds, and water hazards.
But if you think these golf balls are destined to spend an eternity in a watery grave, think again, because the fellows who work here at the golfball depot in tampa, Florida, have figured out a way to turn lost balls into found money.
Hi, how's it going? All right.
How are you doing? Good.
So this is John Paul St.
John, one of the partners here at golfball depot, right? May I call you John Paul St.
John? Or j.
P.
J.
p.
, it is.
What goes on here at the golfball depot? We're basically a golf ball recycling plant.
We go out, we get the balls, we bring them back, we process them, clean them, sort them, package them, sell them here in our store and ship them all over the world.
Where do you get the balls? At the bottom of ponds and lakes.
On golf courses.
When do you do it? Almost every day, five days a week.
Is this one of those days? Yeah.
You want to go get some? I thought you'd never ask.
After you.
Lakes and ponds.
Nice place.
Right next to the interstate.
And this is great.
This is the golfball depot transport? Yeah, you get to ride with the gear in the back.
Got it.
All right.
Well, I'll just hop in.
Hop in.
Have a seat.
Yeah, it looks nice.
What happened to -- is this rust? No.
One of the guys that used to work for the company spit his tobacco juice on the wall.
Great.
Maybe we'll do a little golfing while we're there, huh? Maybe we will.
Great.
See you around.
J.
p.
, his partner, Andy, and I headed straight to the magnolia valley golf club.
The numerous water hazards on this 110-acre facility are home to thousands of golf balls, dozens of snapping turtles, snakes, and a resident alligator named Samson.
It's on right, right? Yeah, you got it on right.
Do they make these in a husky? You got the husky.
No shoes? No shoes 'cause we're going to teach you how to pick them up with your feet as well as hands.
If you have booties on, then you won't be able to feel them.
I'll take care of the jokes, j.
P.
No, I'm serious.
Really? Oh, all right.
Well, never mind then.
When you get in here, there's a lot of mud.
And you fan with your hands through the mud until you feel something hard and you grab on to it, and it's going to be a golf ball.
Now, if it moves, you let it go.
It might be a small gator, it might be a snapping turtle, it might be a snake, but all these things are bad, you want to let it go.
You ready to do this? Yeah? What's biting me? Probably red ants.
All right, we're going in.
You want to slide in because if you try to step in, you might fall down.
Sliding in.
And just feel with your hands for the balls.
You're kidding.
Ah, you know, that stinks! Oh, it does.
Oh! J.
p.
! Well, our work is done here.
I'll see you guys -- we want you to fill that bag up.
I just found three right by you.
I found four by you.
I don't think you're doing a very thorough job.
I got some more mud.
Oh, guys, this is really disgusting! I mean, no kidding.
What am I smelling? It smells -- methane gas.
It's worse than [bleep.]
what I'm smelling.
You getting the hang of it? No, not really.
I understand the concept -- reach down and pick up a ball.
But this whole snapping turtle, alligator, water moccasin, copper head algorithm has got me thinking twice, to be honest.
I don't understand how you're going three feet down into the mud.
You'll get the hang of it once you get golf ball fever.
I'll let you know when that happens.
What are the symptoms again? Dreaming about it.
You dream about golf balls, do ya? You can't leave the course until your bag's full.
Okay.
Well, I'm not quite there yet, with the fever.
There's a trifecta.
I like the triples.
I think you're getting the hang of it.
You ever lose your bag of balls? That's got to be frustrating.
An alligator grabbed my bag of balls one time.
An alligator grabbed this thing and pulled you under? When I was sitting on the bank, he came up, chomped down to try to get me but grabbed the bag.
The bag is what saved me.
There we go.
Whoa! Hee hee hee hee.
Not a golf ball but interesting, nevertheless.
Oh, crap! You didn't do so well.
It's my first time! Now, there's a gator known to hang out in this area.
So, what I like to do is Slap the water with the bag a couple of times.
If he's riding around, he might stick his head up and at least then we know where he's at.
Do you still go in? Yeah, we still go in.
Oh, man! Andy: If the gator comes up on you, go for the eyes.
It's the only thing that really affects them.
Their skin's so rough, it's like leather.
If you had a knife, it wouldn't even help.
But the eyes are like, a foot past the teeth -- yeah, you gotta get over the teeth first.
J.
p.
: I'll show you how to grab with your feet.
You isolate down the bottom, you put it between your feet.
Yeah.
Yeah, like a monkey.
Like a monkey.
A golf ball monkey.
Oh, oh! Look, ma, no hands.
You did good.
You did good.
I'm disappointed again.
After getting my feet wet, it was time to venture into deeper waters.
That will keep the leeches out of your ears.
The what out of my where? I geared up and plunged into the murky depths, in search of more sunken treasures.
Well, it looks like Andy and I got about 500 apiece.
Let's check your bag.
Not so much.
Maybe 30.
So, I take the balls, leave the tank? Yeah.
"Take the gun, leave the cannolis.
" Remember that one? No? Little film.
After a long day on the links, I was about to learn that bagging the balls is only half the battle.
Coming up next, I get a behind-the-scenes tour of j.
P.
'S not so high-tech processing facility.
This is Dr.
Seuss.
And later, I hit the road in search of some unfortunate animals that, well, hit the road.
Oh, dear! After spending the morning treasure hunting for golf balls, it was back to home base Where the real fun began.
You thought the other job was dirty, this one's just about the same.
Yeah, but there are no crocodiles in there or alligators or whatever the hell that thing was.
That was funny how we were over there getting the balls with that gator in the pond.
Yeah, that was hysterical, Andy.
As far as humor goes, that's right up there with the Marx brothers, three stooges, all of them.
Is this a special solution or something? Yeah, we got pool chemicals in it usually.
This one's chlorine.
This one's muriatic acid.
We're going to soak them here for about an hour and a half, and then we'll come back here and wash them up.
All right, now the washing begins.
This is the washing machine.
Yes, this is our golf ball washing machine.
The balls come and go in one end, pop out the other.
This obviously is very high-tech here.
What, did you tear that off one of the mobile homes across the street there? I think he does.
All right.
Uh-oh.
There's a little malfunction at the junction here.
So, we just keep doing this till we're done? It's just a cycle.
A cycle, like a big old maytag.
That's right.
All right.
Now what? Now it's time to sort them, and I'm going to take you over to the Dr.
Seuss.
The Dr.
Seuss? Grab yourself a crate and we'll get started.
Time to sort 'em.
What in the hell happened here? This is Dr.
Seuss.
This is Dr.
Seuss? No, this is Dr.
Seuss! This is mondo! Hey, mondo, how are you? What -- what did you do here? It looks like a science project or something.
Is it alive? Mondo: It could be.
Right now he's sorting all of the balls.
Each one has its own designed crate for it where you sort each ball into a name brand.
And once you sort it into name brand, you'll have to sort it into a different grade.
But it's just one of the many steps of getting the balls in and processing.
You really are like a machine, you know that? You could probably do this in your sleep, couldn't you? Yeah, sometimes.
I got an xl 3,000 right here.
Xl 3,000.
Think I could hit it from here? Try it.
Oh! Ah, well.
Pro.
Very nice.
All right, j.
P.
, so, we've retrieved them, we've washed them, and we've sorted them.
Now what? Typically, we go to our packaging facility.
The packaging facility, where's that? Right here on the sofa.
Okay! So, you guys sit down here with your washed and sorted balls, flip on the discovery channel and do a little packaging? That's right.
12 to a bag in this case? Yes, 12 to a bag.
J.
p.
, this is not really working out the way I hoped here.
No, I don't think that would pass quality control.
I'll start over.
There we go.
That's right.
So, then from the packaging facility back -- oh, of course, I remember this, the retail.
Out to the retail site.
J.
p.
, Andy, and their crew collect and clean more than a million golf balls a year with an average resale value of a dollar a ball.
This dirty job just might make these young entrepreneurs filthy rich.
These are only $3 a dozen.
3 bucks a dozen.
How come these are 5 bucks a dozen? Different brand.
We separate them into over 50 different brands.
14 bucks is almost as good as it gets here, huh? This is what they call a high pro-line ball and these retail for close to $50.
His and hers.
Blue and pink, very nice.
These here are what they call night balls.
It's got a little hole in the middle, and you can put a little glow stick in it so you can play golf at night.
So, what's the difference with the $5 balls here and the $6 balls? About a dollar.
Gotcha.
This kills me.
You've got golf tips up here.
Why would you want to give people tips on how to golf properly? It's a golf store and we're golf-oriented, but we know that putting the tips up there really aren't going to help anybody.
The balls are going in the water anyway.
People are that bad.
But not all of the balls that j.
P.
And Andy collect end up on store shelves.
The seventh level of hell for a golf ball is an eternity on the driving range.
Those that don't make the cut are striped and sold in bulk to golf courses around the world.
Rowe: The artist at work.
Hey.
So, you're making range balls.
We're taking the low-end balls.
We're putting a stripe on them with some red dye, put them on the drying rack and we package them up, ship them out to driving ranges.
I can get a rhythm going sometimes.
Holy crap.
Look at you go.
You're like some kind of savant.
It's boring work, but it has to be done, too.
So, on a good day, when you've got your rhythm down, how many of these do you do? I try not to do more than 4,000 or 5,000 in a day.
From moving your leg up and down, you'll get a backache.
So, if you're not gathering, you're striping, if you're not striping, you're washing, if you're not washing, you're sorting? And if you're doing any of the above, you're probably sweating because it gets hot in here.
You know what else is nice about this -- the fumes.
The fumes are nice.
It has a pleasant effect after I'd say the 3,000 or 4,000th ball.
Very peaceful.
Very nice.
You press the pedal and it presses this lever and then you undo the pedal while you let go of the ball.
Probably want to have it over here, don't I? Everyone has to develop their own technique at this.
Yeah, right now, I'm conspicuously absent of one.
It's perfect! Try again.
Drop it And then snag it.
You're a natural.
Oh, that's a natural mess.
Let 'em up and out.
What am I doing wrong? I'm overshooting.
Like I said, everybody needs to gain their own technique at it.
After the first few thousand, I think you'll get a hang of it.
Oh.
It's perfect.
It is.
It's insane.
What -- now, that would look great on a Christmas tree, admit it.
Let me try with the right hand.
See if I'm any better with that.
Ow! Now what? You need a towel.
What a stupid job.
Now there's a golf ball you could be proud of.
So, thanks to the hard-working guys at the golfball depot, thousands of abandoned and neglected golf balls are now enjoying a whole new lease on life.
Oh! I'll let j.
P.
Get that one.
Next, on "dirty jobs," it's animals versus cars, and guess who wins.
And later, I get way too familiar with a thoroughbred stud with one thing on his mind.
We all know why the chicken crossed the road -- to get to the other side.
Unfortunately, getting to the other side isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Today I'm hitting the road with two of the Ohio department of transportation's finest -- Dean mische and Ricky hissong.
They pick up roadkill.
Rowe: How long you reckon it's been here? I'd say a couple days.
Couple days? Doesn't look so good.
No, doesn't look good at all.
Nope.
Rowe: So, guys, how do we pick this up? A one and a two-a.
You just pretty much Take him and This is where the lift gate comes in handy.
Oh, you just put him on the gate.
Keeps him off of you.
They used to -- oh, that's handy.
I thought we were going to have to throw him up in the air.
Daggone it.
That's a mess.
Mische: Well, it's a sad thing.
But a lot of times they don't even have a spot on them hardly.
But maybe it breaks a neck or a leg or something.
This one's got a spot on him.
Yeah, yeah.
So, we're off to get another one.
Unfortunately.
Yeah.
In an average year, Dean and Ricky clean up almost 1,000 dead deer, possums, raccoons, and other unfortunate critters.
Some are in better shape than others.
Oh.
This ain't good, Dean.
Well, it just goes to show how the life cycle works, I guess.
How fresh? Fresh might not be the right word, but Yeah, it's a little more on the stale side, I'd say.
This smells bad.
There's times that you have to either laugh or throw up, whatever comes first, which you might as well laugh 'cause -- well, I tell you what, you laugh, I'll throw up, and then later on, we'll switch off, it'll be great.
We'll be giggling and vomiting all day.
Oh, man! I mean, it is kind of funny when you take people out and they start gagging.
Yeah, that's comedy right there, Dean.
Oh, boy.
So, we don't -- we're not worried about cleaning up these maggots before we take the deer back? No, they're just part of the program.
That's a lot of maggots.
This smells bad.
I mean, in the scheme of things, is this a bad-smelling deer or does it get much worse? I'd give it a five.
On a scale of what? Oh, well.
That means they get a lot stinkier than this.
I've had them on the back of the truck and somebody following me down the highway and have to stay back about a half a mile to a mile because they could smell them in the truck.
Oh, gosh! Oh, dear.
I guess it's not going to move itself, huh? Well, kind of slowly.
It's easier to drag them forward against the hair.
All right.
There you go.
You got some company.
It's almost time for lunch, ain't it? I think I'll pass.
Tell you what, bad day to be a deer.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, that's a buck, all right.
I guess the buck stopped here.
Are we done? Well, for now, at least picking them up.
I don't think the truck can hold much more.
Well I guess maybe it could then, huh? We've had as many as, I think, 15 one day.
Get out of here, 15? Not saying all on the truck at one time, but, you know, picked that many up in one day.
You might be asking yourself, "what do you do with a truckful of dead deer?" Well, they're brought here, to the Ashland county composting facility where they're turned into mulch.
Rowe: This would be the final resting place, huh? Yeah.
All right.
So, the deer in the truck are going to go in here, right? Want to drag it right off? Yep.
Oh, boy.
That's a mess.
The carcasses are unloaded, stacked and covered with a couple tons of sawdust.
Eventually, they decompose into a nutritious compost.
Well, there it is -- some of Ohio's roadkill might be destined for your garden or your flowerpots maybe.
So, the next time you're watering your begonias or pruning your petunias, you might just want to kneel and say a little prayer.
Next, on dirty jobs, I check into the mare motel and probe the mysteries of artificial insemination.
Rowe: It's early morning at the Babcock ranch, very dreadfully early.
But a great time to collect some horse semen.
Located just outside of Dallas, Texas, Babcock ranch is one of the premier horse-breeding facilities in the world.
Here, more than 300 cutting and reining horses are produced each year.
But don't get the wrong idea.
This isn't some free-love, hedonistic, equine playboy ranch.
Unh-unh, it's all about pure bloodlines and science.
This is what we call an artificial vagina, or sometimes a boot.
Dr.
Khris Crowe is the director of the artificial insemination program here at Babcock ranch.
This is attached to a receptacle, which in all honesty, is a baby bottle, and it has a plastic liner in it and this is what we're going to use to collect the semen from the stallion.
This is going to be our tease mare this morning.
She's in sexual receptivity today.
In other words, she's in heat, and so she's here to provide a little bit of stimulus for our stallion that we're going to collect.
So, the stallion -- or "paid by chick" -- is going to be led in here, and the mare's going to be positioned somehow back in here? Yes.
All of our stallions we collect artificially by allowing them to come into this area, get ready, be washed, and then they come in and actually mount what we call a phantom.
Kind of like a pummel horse, if you'll pardon the pun.
That is what it looks like.
And we'll keep our recipient mare right in front of him so that he's got visual stimulus very naturally.
You make it sound so romantic.
Well, it does have to be a little romantic or we couldn't get it done.
But before the semen can be collected, the artificial vagina has to be cleaned and prepped.
How do you know exactly what paid by chick likes in the way of an artificial vagina? Is he particular? Dr.
Crowe: Too hot, too tight, too cold, and too loose will be bad enough that you will not get a collection.
Things could go wrong any number of ways.
All right.
Horacio's working with one, so, can he change the size of this to the point where this will accommodate any of the stallions? You do not allow artificial vaginas to be passed or shared between stallions.
In fact, if you'll open this cabinet right behind you here This one, under lock and key? You will see that each stallion -- holy cow! Look at that! Just like in the Wal-Mart all the way back in the prescription aisle, only these are larger.
Every stallion does have his own artificial vagina.
They're marked with that stallion's name, and, of course, after use, they're cleaned, they're dried, and they're stored in a dustless cabinet.
"Smart aristocrat," "genuine legacy," "lean with me" -- that's funny.
Who belongs to -- this is a -- different stallions have different anatomy to their reproductive tract and some stallions require longer artificial vaginas and some of them shorter.
It's the way of things.
It is natural.
With everything set, it was time to go to work.
Well, there's our boy.
[ Whinnying .]
He's announcing himself to his mares.
Yes, he certainly is! Well, if we're going to let you do this, Mike, we'll give you some head protection.
All right.
This is a bicycle helmet, basically.
Yeah, just in case you were to take a blow to the back of the head nothing bad would happen to you.
You realize this doesn't fit me at all.
I know.
Sorry.
And so the first thing we're gonna let you do is wash the horse.
Cotton over here? Should I take the bucket with me? No, just a handful of cotton, and you're gonna put that in your right hand.
All right.
Do I wring it out at all? Come back to me avoiding the horse's hindquarters.
There you go.
Approach him at the shoulder.
Lay your left hand on his withers so he knows that you're there.
Hey, boy, I'm here.
It's just me.
And then just drape your hand all across his rib cage, all the way down, deflect and wash.
Deflect and wash.
Deflect and wash.
Okay.
That like so? That's very good.
Thank you.
That's a clean horse right there.
You could eat off that horse.
[ Whinnies .]
Nothing to see here.
Nothing to see here.
You know what, I think my helmet scared him.
And I say that because my helmet scares me a little.
Okay.
We're gonna give you the artificial vagina, and you're gonna hold this in your left hand.
We're gonna let the horse mount.
Don't turn your back on him.
Keep your eyes on him at all times.
Don't go up there too soon.
We'll let him get all the way up on the dummy.
You're gonna deflect with your right hand, and place the artificial vagina all the way onto his penis and then just hold steady.
[ Neighs .]
I believe that horse is ready.
There you go.
Go right ahead.
Going to deflect with the right.
All the way up into his groin.
And just hold steady.
I'm holding steady.
Feel free to come on over here, doctor.
You're doing great.
I'll stay back here where it's safe.
Push up into his groin.
Push it on him hard.
There, excellent.
One, two, three -- you're getting ejaculatory jets -- four, five.
Let him fall out of the boot.
There you go.
And you're good.
Excellent! Really excellent! Yeah? All right.
Give it up, huh? You're hired.
I'll wash later.
Man! Hey, nice working with you! He's exhausted.
This looks like about 30 ccs, or one ounce of semen.
He generally gives us anywhere from 200 to 300 million sperm per mil.
So, this is very easily going to be enough for us to breed 8 or 10 mares.
How much is this worth? The bag itself? No, no, the contents.
Yeah.
I know where to get the bag, doctor.
That bag right there's probably worth $25,000.
And it could all be yours if the price is right.
[ Both laugh .]
Good horsey.
Wow, that horse is a stud.
I'll never be the same again.
Better for the experience, I'm sure.
Yeah, I hope the horse feels the same way.
After we've taken our collection, we want to evaluate what we've got.
We know that it takes 500 million sperm to optimally get a mare pregnant.
So, the first step is to count the semen.
You just put a tiny, tiny bit onto that thing there.
And now it's been inserted, so this is -- it's counting it right now? That's exactly right, and there's 133 million sperm cells in every milliliter of our collection that we got.
What's the next step? We're gonna take a look at it on a microscope and find out just how our sperm are looking here.
We actually will be able to see it on the monitor here.
Oh, cool.
We do have a large number of sperm, and those that are alive and are swimming are actually moving so quickly, you'll see them get out of your field of vision very fast.
What's this guy? What's that? That's an air bubble, and it's being moved around by the motion of the sperm itself.
You see a lot of velocity.
It's good that they're blurs.
Look at that.
That dude is a superstar.
Look at him go! Coming up next, once you've got the sperm, you need someplace to put it.
And I look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.
The 300 stallions, mares, and foals at the Babcock ranch need to be kept in peak physical condition, and that means attending to every aspect of their health, even their teeth.
What are we doing, just a regular teeth cleaning? And this is Casper? Casper is a little sedated right now.
Yes, we don't want Casper to worry about this procedure, so we're going to let him have pleasant memories of everything we're going to do today.
So, this is the speculum.
That's exactly right.
We'll put his head up here.
And I'm gonna get a headlight on, and you'll be able to actually look in and take a look in a horse's mouth the way few people ever see it.
Look at that.
24 premolars and molars all to grind hay and grass and grain with.
I found my keys.
It's absolutely painless, but, of course, it's got a sound and it's got a vibration.
Good boy.
Spit.
There's smoke coming out of the horse's mouth.
What you're doing is you're taking off enamel points, and it pulverizes those points.
It's not really smoke.
It's really tooth dust.
Stand by, here we go.
Really good.
Is it safe? We might wash his mouth out.
Well, horses don't floss, naturally.
No, they don't.
But they've got no thumbs.
There's no opposable thumb.
You can't floss.
That's exactly right, so we'll just rinse his mouth.
And I don't have a big porcelain spit cup.
I noticed that.
I mean, I think we can all relate to that, right? The dentist -- he says "spit" and it goes right on your shirt.
That's exactly what we did.
The sedative I gave him has a great deal of euphoria.
He'll remember this as a very pleasant experience and look forward to his next dental.
So, this is like horsey nitrous oxide? Very much like it.
Nice.
After playing dentist with Casper, my next date at Babcock ranch was with a feisty mare looking for a little action.
Dr.
Crowe: This is a mare that we're actually going to breed to paid by chick using the semen that we collected.
So, Mike, if you will, go ahead and use our hose and clean her up a little bit.
We'll use some soap and a knuckle wash and a rinse.
A knuckle wash? They like the knuckles, do they? We don't want your fingertips to actually go inside the mare, so we're gonna ask you to close your hand and just use the knuckles of your hand to wash her up nice and clean, rinse again, and then we'll dry her and she'll be ready.
This is the washing guy here? That is correct.
All righty, just a little squirt in there.
Huh? Good? Perfect.
Great.
Get you a little soap from right here.
This is soap? All right.
Put a little in there.
There we go.
Looks like teriyaki sauce.
All right and, uh, knuckles? Please.
Pretty please.
Okay.
Oh.
You want to be sure and get deep into the folds.
That's where most of the dirt is.
Naturally.
Let's get this vulva nice and new, shiny and new.
Do they get shiny? Sure.
If you rub them enough, I suppose they do.
We like shiny heinies! We're gonna ask you to rinse that again really well.
You mean my hand or the -- I'm not as concerned about your hand as I am the mare.
If you would, please, just take a paper towel and get her dry.
Paper towel.
There you go.
That is a clean vulva, doctor.
Nice, nice job.
I mean, I think, as vulvas go.
That will be quite satisfactory.
Dr.
Crowe: We're gonna put some lube on you all the way, give you some in the palm of your hand as well.
Gonna let it drop there and not touch you.
We're gonna give you a sterile insemination pipette, which is just a big, long plastic straw, so I'm going to take it out of the sleeve.
And you now can grasp it with your sterile hand down here toward the tip.
So this hand can touch this end of the straw.
Put the straw in your hand with your fingertips over the top of it like this, there you go, and pull the tail to the side, Jess.
All the way to the side, there we go.
Thanks, Jess.
You're simply going to introduce that past the lips of the vulva.
That's this area, here, of course.
Stay dorsal, stay toward her spine, stay up high.
We don't want you to get down on the floor of the vagina.
That's where the opening to the urethra is.
You'll end up in her urinary bladder, and she's liable to express herself all over you.
Sorry, honey, I've got to push a little.
And on the front end of the vaginal vault, you should be able to find the cervix -- the cervix will be a long, tubular structure.
Is it round? Yes, round.
I'm in.
I'm in.
We're going to let you now with your left hand attach that Syringe to the end of your pipette.
You're actually going to just inseminate this mare.
Just by pushing this? This is it? Mm-hmm.
There we go.
Good.
All the way.
There you are.
And then just bring everything back with you.
Very good.
Very good.
Okay.
You have just made Babcock ranch another horse.
Thank you very much.
That's my boy! Yeah! Or my girl, if you will.
Your girl! Either way, who knows? As long as she's healthy.
If you thought artificial insemination was the end-all, be-all of the breeding process, think again, because once an embryo is successfully formed, it has to be removed and transplanted into a surrogate mare.
You might think of it as an equine assembly line.
What are you doing here? On these horses that we're about to work on, we need to do a rectal examination.
So we're going to take all of the manure that's in the rectum and we're going to remove it.
That's nice.
Let's walk over here and, you know, introduce ourselves.
Tell me what these guys are doing, too.
This is Jesse and horacio.
And as soon as we've evacuated the rectum, they're going to go ahead and put these tails up and wash these mares for an embryo-transfer procedure.
We've got, "cowgirls are smart" on the right, and we've got "Bobbi" on the left.
And hopefully if things go well today, we're going to pull an embryo from cowgirls are smart and give it to Bobbi.
Bobbi is our surrogate mare.
She's gonna be the mother for the next 11 months.
Just reach right on in there, do you? Good girl.
Oh, my goodness.
Oh! Jeez! Do you want me to hold your feet or something? Okay.
We're going to need a bucket right behind you, Mike.
Yeah, let me get that.
There you go.
In the process of flushing her embryo from her, I'm going to need to go rectally on her to apply some pressure to her reproductive organs.
And when I go in there, I don't want any manure to be coming out and contaminating our situation, because we need a very sterile process to get her embryo.
We'll do this mare as well.
Pretty much all looks the same though, doesn't it? I can identify most our horses from this angle.
[ Laughs .]
You gotta get out more! Ah, yeah.
I'm going it take this into the mare's vagina, pass it through her cervix.
Once it's through her cervix, we're going to blow up this balloon with some fluid so that it cannot come back out.
Then just close your hand, make a fist, Mike.
Now you're a cervix.
And as we use this, this will not allow the balloon to come back out.
From this procedure, then, we can put flush solution into the mare's uterus where the embryo is living and then stop and allow that fluid to come back out.
And as we put fluid in and collect the fluid back out, we're going to hope that the embryo floats into the fluid, comes back out our tubing, and we're gonna catch it in a cup -- actually, you're going to collect it in a cup.
I'm going to catch the embryo? We hope you do.
I played baseball for years.
My hand-eye is fantastic.
You know, as a veterinarian, this is my favorite thing to do because it's entirely creative.
You're not working with horses that are sick or lame or injured.
You're working with perfectly happy, healthy horses, and you're making more happy, healthy horses, and, um, it's wonderful.
Yeah.
So, I've put the foley catheter through the cervix.
It's into her uterus.
Jesse's gonna inflate that balloon for me.
I'll pull back to make sure we've got a nice seal.
And we'll Simply then put some of that fluid inside.
What's it feel like? It's very soft and very warm.
We're going to let about 500, 600 mils of fluid go into the uterus, and then we'll turn this off.
And we're going to have Jesse show you how to collect into this embryo-trapping filter cup.
And then we're going to let you do it.
Okay? And we're just going to collect fluid back.
Beautiful.
Nice, clean flush.
That's good.
That sound is coming from the cup and not Jesse, right? That's exactly right.
Okay.
Then she's pretty much given us all she's going to give us back.
We don't have it yet.
We'll do three of these flushes.
And tell you what, Mike, we'll have you replace where Jesse is.
We'll let you hold the cup, put some more fluid in her, and we'll see if we can get an embryo back.
Now, don't spill it, don't let it overflow, and for goodness' sake, don't drop it.
You act like this is my first day with an embryo transfer or something! Here you go.
Good.
Now, if it look like it's getting too full, just raise the cup up.
Raise it up.
Got a good, nice, fast flow.
That's really good.
We got an embryo? Where is it? We'll go look on the scope and see if we can see it.
This little guy here? Son of a gun.
Don't drop the embryo.
Don't drop the embryo.
Dr.
Crowe: And that is a whole 8-day horse embryo.
We're going to wash it two more times.
The idea being that we're going to get this as clean and sterile as we can possibly make it.
And the next thing we're going to do is, uh, get it -- ready for church! Get it loaded into the instrument that will then put it into our surrogate mare.
And now, Mike, you're holding an entire 8-day-old embryo.
You have a whole horse in the straw of that pipette.
We are going to put it into Bobbi as our surrogate mare, and she's going carry the pregnancy for us.
Okay, come on this side for me, Mike.
I'm going to take the instrument and the inner sleeve, and I'll going to let you hang onto the outer sleeve for me.
The pipette.
Leave it to the French to come up with something like this.
We're going to introduce this into the mare's vagina.
And then once we're in the cervix, this is a little plunger that will hit that column of talc, and as I depress this, the embryo is being deposited into her uterus.
We'll bring the whole procedure back out.
And we'll be checking this mare in five days.
And in five days, we'll know if she's going to accept that embryo, if she's gonna nurture that embryo, and if she's gonna become pregnant and then carry and produce a baby for us next year.
Well, all in all, it's been quite an adventure here at the Babcock ranch.
I learned a great deal about the miracle of life Perhaps a little too much.
[ Neighing .]
I collected semen from a thoroughbred stallion, and I knuckle-washed a prize mare And I stuck my hand deep inside of places where your hand should, well, never, ever really go.
Yeah, it's a dirty job, but frankly, next time, somebody else can do it.