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You're listening to the Bird Bath. This episode of the Bird Bath is brought to you by the Bird Bath Terminal and our new API and mcp. If you're in Vet Med, M and A or recruiting or you sell into practices, you've got the spreadsheet. Somebody built it. Somebody's supposed to be updating it, but nobody is. The terminal is that. But live every practice in the US ownership down to the group, corporate versus local, independent doctor rosters, revenue estimates, acquisitions, openings and closings as they happen. And now you don't have to come to us to use it. The new Birdbath API puts all of it inside what you've already built. Sync owners into your CRM so your team can see who's corporate before they dial. Feed practice counts and revenue estimates into your model. And instead of retyping them, hit it nightly and your pipeline updates itself. MCP is the same data but a different door. Point Claude at the terminal and just ask which group bought in Texas last quarter. Give me every three doctor practice in Nashville. It queries the live database and answers. No exports, no reformats, no analyst in the middle. Your team already knows what to ask. Give them the answers with the Birdbath terminal. Go to thebirdbath IO terminal for more information or click the link in our show notes. Welcome back to the Birdbath. Each week we scrape the surface of the news you need to know. So let's get into it. It's a little lighter news week this week, so stick with me. We're going to knock this one out and get you on the road. Top story this week is Tractor Supply Company putting out their Q numbers as well as shutting 75 of their Pet Sense stores. These 75 closing practices are a pretty large part of their footprint. They reported to having 209 retail locations of this pet store that they own at the end of the quarter. So it's more of the third of the chain going. They said that they have over $71 million in impairments and other charges, including a $5.9 million inventory. The problem here isn't that the stores are underperforming. They have a negative four wall cash flow. So these stores are not only underperforming or not growing, they're losing money for the business. And it's also impacting the broader tractor supply business. They said that their core expansion targets went from 100 stores in 2027 down to 85 to 90. A few things that you have to think about when you're looking at this is Tractor Supply says a lot of their shoppers drive large pickup trucks that run on diesel and those prices have continued to go up. So it's one of these things that it's more difficult and more expensive for them to make it into the store to be a shopper. Now just a couple months ago, Tractor Supply made a really big move in the pet space when they bought VIP pet care from PetIQ, which is owned by private equity group. It brought a BIG portfolio, over 2,700 locations across 39 states of their mobile pop up practices and over 1700 of those practices that are already popping up inside tractor supply stores. So they've seen this huge push and opportunity to drive more people into the stores through their vet care. But in the meantime they're closing that pet retail business. So are we going to see a shift in the inventory to seeing more of that stuff carried inside the tractor supply store or are we starting to see this where maybe the revenue from the vets are bringing people in the door for the rest of their spending and they're seeing their partnership or their ownership of Ally Vet, their online pharmacy, driving some of those additional sales. So big story one to keep your eye out on and Tractor Supply is definitely a major player and one that should not be overlooked when people are thinking about the size of our industry. Another place where people are trying to figure out the size of our industry is through surveys. Digitail and AHA want to hear from you. They're fielding their 2026 AI and vet med survey right now. It's completely anonymous and it takes about 15 minutes to complete. And they're raffling off gift cards for anyone that fills out the surveys. So go and fill it out because this is the opportunity to set the baseline of what's happening in our this is a follow up to a study that they did in 2024. They surveyed almost 4,000 respondents and at the time in 2024, almost 84% of people were familiar with AI and nearly 40% of them were actually using it. 70% of those were using it daily or weekly. But that number's two years old and it really predates the massive growth of AI scribes. And it's still a number that people are talking about. So what we already know about some of this data is that practices are looking for it. They're trying to figure out what's going on. And AI is a piece that can really tackle a lot of it. Covet's Q1 2026 survey, which was quite a bit smaller but still directionally important found that 62% say admin work interferes with clinical care often or almost always, and 91% use AI for documentation. The best finding in their report was that 53% got less worried after using it and only 9% saw an increase of their fear around lives. So it was definitely a good number there. The big thing here that we're trying to figure out is are we seeing that it's 60% of people using this? 70%? Where's the 39.2% that Digital found two years ago coming in? Who's using it? Where's it breaking down? And what's the accuracy of this data looking like now? We've talked about some other people that are surveying this and trying to figure it out. John Ayers, the former IDEX CEO, and Adam Wysocki at Vet Software Hub have been publishing a lot of these reports and they're saying a ton of people still are stuck on the idexx and Covetous pims and that a lot of those users are not able to access open APIs, which is sort of the linchpin in a lot of people's opinion of allowing these AI tools to unlock. Now Digital obviously is a PIMS as well, and so their survey is going to have the idea of wanting people to use their own integrated and internal AI tools. But there's this opportunity in this space here where people are wondering, do PIMs still have the lockdown on where this data goes and are they the ones that get to decide what people are doing and where the AI data is flowing to and from? So if you have not filled out the survey yet, go on and fill it out. I know they'd love to hear from as many people as possible to really understand how Vet Med is tackling AI. I'll put a link in the show notes in case you want to do this, or you can visit digitail.com to get more information. Finally, Buzz Health and Vet Hub RX have partnered to bring real time prescription savings into vet clinics. This is happening at a time when prescriptions are a hot but an issue. Just last week we talked about CVS adding pet medications to over 9,000 of their pharmacies. So people are now at a space where they can go to the local CVS and get the medication that they were buying over the counter or that they were waiting overnight for Chewy to bring to them. So Vet Hub RX and Buzz Health RX Compare pricing infrastructure will fit into the clinical workflow flow and allow both the veterinary providers and pet owners to access and apply the lowest available discount price at the point of prescribing and fulfillment. So the thing here is that if you're a veterinarian and you're going to be sending out those scripts, you can now use Vet Hub RX to send out the E script and you can send your client somewhere where they're going to be spending less money, they're not going to be spending it with you. You might as well find a way for them to be able to save money on the total cost of care. I guess maybe that's the argument that they have there. It's an opportunity as well if you think about what's the best for the pet. Well, continued utilization of prescribed medications and refills and keeping up to date on what really matters for that animal will allow them to increase the wellness. And they're still going to have to come to you and to get that refill script written or to come through for those wellness checks and come to the practice for the things that matter about the overall wellness and not just thinking about producing the revenue on the prescription. So this is a spot here where we have to wonder, has that ship sailed? Where we're battling an uphill battle against keeping that pharmacy counter full at the practice and perhaps moving that outside and making it the lowest friction for the team in the clinic as well as the clients and the patients. So hospitals are in a tough spot here as they think about this. But the CEO and founder of Vet Hub rx, MJ Hamilton, said our providers want to give pet owners every advantage when it comes to affording the medication their pets need. Integrating real time discount pricing into our workflow means pet owners can see the most affordable option and at the pharmacy closest to them. So let's see where it goes. It's a big thing to try and wrap your head around. Are you going to make it easier to fill prescriptions outside of the clinic? Are you going to help your clients price shop those prescriptions as well so that they can save money there and hope to reallocate that for care in the clinic? A ton of unanswered questions, but some really, really big things to be thinking about. A place I want to be thinking about that with people is at the conferences I am going to for the rest of this year. I finally got my calendar all updated and I have a fun and full time ahead of me. First place we're going to be going is at the end of August. I'm going to be going to WVC Nashville and I'm excited because it's the inaugural kickoff one I'll be there August 16th through 18th. A few days later I'm going to be heading up to Kansas City and getting in early before the Animal Health Corridor Summit and really I'd love to come and visit some of you. I know a ton of our people that listen to this show and make major impacts across the industry are in the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor and it would be awesome to get a chance to come and sort of see where you all work. I'm going to be in town for a few days before the conference and and hoping to sit down and just experience the corridor from within side the walls of people that work in it every single day. Then we're headed up to Boston in October for the Animal Health Nutrition Technology Innovation Summit anti usa. And then finally my last conference of the year is one that I am over the moon and excited about and that's Vet Assembly. Vet assembly is a brand new event. We've got two new events on the calendar this year, but this one is one that I'm really pleased to be able to be the of. So Vet assembly is bringing together a new way of elevating the one on one business networking opportunity. We're bringing together some of the largest and most influential groups across Vet Med, consolidating practices and pairing them directly with the vendors that matter. So the vendors are getting an opportunity here to sit down and have meaningful conversations with questions corporate groups that are consolidating the practices that they work with. It's also an opportunity where we're putting together panels that aren't based on who sponsored or who paid the most to be there, but on what information is going to make the biggest impact in how you all run your businesses. Something I would really recommend people at least to look at and see if it's the right fit for you as a vendor or if you're a corporate group and you're looking to be making some changes to your services, technology stack or anything else across your platform over the next year. Now is the time to sign up for VetAssembly and figure out what is changing for 2027. Feel free to reach out to me. You all know you can reach me and find me anywhere. I would love to meet with people when I'm across the country for these awesome events and hope that you all have a fantastic time and hope that we can get a chance to say hello. And for more on these and other stories, join us by subscribing to our substack there's a link in the bio. And don't miss out on any episodes by subscribing and rating the show. For the Birdbath, I'm Ryan Leech. See you next week.