- Location
- Suffolk, UK
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Farm vets?
- Thread starter Andrew1983
- Start date
Princess Pooper
Member
- Location
- East Mids
Our large local practice specialised in farm animals about 15 years ago and has expanded rapidly and now has several branches and surgeries. They are part of XL vets so also do the regional TB testing. Most other local practices no longer do large animal. They have 2 teams of vets (about 14 in total) so some only do small some only do farms, some can do both - at least give phone advice on both, having either recently moved from farm to small (eg one of the older female vets). The TB testers who are all male are all from overseas but all do a bit of 'normal' farm work to keep their CPD and interest levels up. The farm vet team includes young female graduates but they are farmers' daughters. I don't think they have any major recruitment issues and have a good balance of more and less experienced vets, I suspect they offer good training and mentoring partly through being part of XL. They do also use an in-house (female) technician to offer things like mobility and condition scoring, taking bloods etc, I think a vet nurse who has then had additional training.
Princess Pooper
Member
- Location
- East Mids
Regarding the grades for vet school - one can do a 'similar' degree eg zoology, animal science which usually are not so heavily competitive so might get in with lower grades. Then once qualified they could do a graduate entry vet degree course, the downside is this is a further 4 years (so a total of 7 yrs not the normal 5 to become a qualified vet), with the corresponding increase in debt! I know of several farm vets who went in via this route. https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/bvetmed-graduate-accelerated
betweenthelines
Member
- Location
- southwest
Back in the 1970's our local "vet" was a "Practicioner" not a Surgeon as he didn't have all the qualifications! He was very good and very experienced but had to have a fully qualified partner as he couldn't prescribe certain drugs. I'm sure this wouldn't be allowed these days, but IMO most diagnostic work is experience based, i.e. they've seen the condition before, and judging by some posts on here, not everyone has 100% faith in Vet diagnosis anyway!
I guess what I'm saying is that qualifications aren't everything, and certainly for routine work like TB testing, calving, PD's, I'd have no problem with "unqualified" vets doing the work
No different really than going to the local GP surgery and seeing the Practice Nurse for blood tests, change of dressings etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that qualifications aren't everything, and certainly for routine work like TB testing, calving, PD's, I'd have no problem with "unqualified" vets doing the work
No different really than going to the local GP surgery and seeing the Practice Nurse for blood tests, change of dressings etc.
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
Full disclosure: I am a vet that started out in mixed but mainly large animal practice. I'd had enough after a year and a half due to the isolation, lack of support, long hours, on call rota and poor pay. This is admittedly nearly 20 years ago and things in the profession have improved for recent grads. It would also have to be said that some (minority) of the farmers weren't the most pleasant to deal with. I now do meat hygiene work.
Edit: Another reason I packed it in was a bad back. It's a physical job.
I went to a conference last February, the topic for which was 'Brexit and the veterinary profession'. Several speakers touched on the lack of vets in the country and how Brexit would make this worse and what a major problem this was. This was echoed in several articles in the Vet Record etc. this year. When the veterinary pay survey was published later in the year, pay levels had actually gone down! What happened to supply and demand??
I don't think that it should be any surprise that a profession where recent graduate numbers have been so dominated by females should be struggling for practicing vets, particularly not in a branch where out-of-hours cover and a fair degree of physical strength are required. That's not to say that there are not many excellent female farm vets (there's one in our local practice).
Edit: Another reason I packed it in was a bad back. It's a physical job.
I went to a conference last February, the topic for which was 'Brexit and the veterinary profession'. Several speakers touched on the lack of vets in the country and how Brexit would make this worse and what a major problem this was. This was echoed in several articles in the Vet Record etc. this year. When the veterinary pay survey was published later in the year, pay levels had actually gone down! What happened to supply and demand??
I don't think that it should be any surprise that a profession where recent graduate numbers have been so dominated by females should be struggling for practicing vets, particularly not in a branch where out-of-hours cover and a fair degree of physical strength are required. That's not to say that there are not many excellent female farm vets (there's one in our local practice).
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farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
Pet owners are willing to pay more and more for the health of their pets, farmers are willing/can afford to pay less and less for the services of their vets...
Pieces_of_Eight
Member
We had girls from RVC at Potters Bar come to do a year with us at Agric college as part of their course.
People say that Agrics know how to party, but these girls were beyond feral.
A girl at our college did this. She did Equine Science, then used it to get into Liverpool Vet School. Ended up fully qualified then went to Sandhurst on the Tarts & Vicars course and ended up leaving the Army as a Major and started a practice of her own
We had our horses vaccinated on Wednesday and the vet was Italian. She said working conditions here are so much better. Didn't ask her about Brexit though...
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kfpben
Member
- Location
- Mid Hampshire
I have young three farm vets either in training or recently qualified within half a mile! I had 5 until last year when a couple moved out of where they were living.
Seem to be plenty training through my local vet practice. Whether they stick with farm or move over to small after they qualify I’m not sure. I think a lot of the young vets get fed up with constant TB testing, which I really don’t think needs to be done by a qualified vet.
Seem to be plenty training through my local vet practice. Whether they stick with farm or move over to small after they qualify I’m not sure. I think a lot of the young vets get fed up with constant TB testing, which I really don’t think needs to be done by a qualified vet.
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
Good point. Minette Batters of the NFU said on the radio earlier in the week that our food was the third cheapest in the world after USA and Singapore. I assume that's as a percentage of income. So much for consumers being willing to pay for higher standards!
My other half is a mixed practice vet, qualified for 4 years, and now she’s pondering wether to pack the largies in. Although she said she’d miss the farmer banter etc and getting out of the practice, she really has had enough of getting out of bed at 2am on a miserable winters night to do a cow caesar on a farm with less than adequate facilities, especially the possibility of a young family back home one day. My sisters a GP, and to compare both professions, the vet world is waaay behind the human medicine world, vets are just not looked after well enough. And working out the hours she works in one week, she’s on near enough minimum wage. I couldn’t hack it!
ridger
Member
- Location
- Tyrone, Northern Ireland
We are all nice over here! !
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
Your right it’s a huge issue but some of the points and assumptions are incorrect. I was a full time farm vet for 12 years. Initially for an independent which then became part of a corporate. I left them 2 years ago to return to the family farm. I now work 3 days a week for 8 months of the year for a local mixed practice just doing farm work. That’s my background.
Small / mixed practice struggle to recruit farm vets due to lack of support / rota. It’s hard on young vets in these practices as the majority of farmers expect such a high level and the vets don’t get enough opportunity and are then expected to do the perfect caesar at 2am. I don’t blame the farmer but everyone expects so much more from everyone these days and less tolerance for mistakes.
Large farm practice tend to fair better at recruiting as they nearly always have better levels of support and training and generally a better rota for time off. We used to have plenty of new grads tended to struggle to find experienced vets but actually preferred young / new grads as you train them more easily.
The areas that struggle are places with no dairy where mixed practice still survives. Massive amount of farm work in spring then little for the rest of the year. It’s not what farm vets want.
As an aside the money is not great, long working hours. I know farmers work long hours but there is more flexibility in your day / week.
Farm vets are also expected to physically fit and mentally smart. You expect someone to do the difficult calving and sort out complex herd health issues. It takes a certain sort of person and not many out there.
Apologies I’m just rambling now. Vet recruitment is a massive issue for practices and the crux of it is probably not enough money in livestock farming to justify decent vet fees hence wages and number of vets in practice for good rota and time off.
Small / mixed practice struggle to recruit farm vets due to lack of support / rota. It’s hard on young vets in these practices as the majority of farmers expect such a high level and the vets don’t get enough opportunity and are then expected to do the perfect caesar at 2am. I don’t blame the farmer but everyone expects so much more from everyone these days and less tolerance for mistakes.
Large farm practice tend to fair better at recruiting as they nearly always have better levels of support and training and generally a better rota for time off. We used to have plenty of new grads tended to struggle to find experienced vets but actually preferred young / new grads as you train them more easily.
The areas that struggle are places with no dairy where mixed practice still survives. Massive amount of farm work in spring then little for the rest of the year. It’s not what farm vets want.
As an aside the money is not great, long working hours. I know farmers work long hours but there is more flexibility in your day / week.
Farm vets are also expected to physically fit and mentally smart. You expect someone to do the difficult calving and sort out complex herd health issues. It takes a certain sort of person and not many out there.
Apologies I’m just rambling now. Vet recruitment is a massive issue for practices and the crux of it is probably not enough money in livestock farming to justify decent vet fees hence wages and number of vets in practice for good rota and time off.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
Lawyer to the gangsters ??
No. not gangsters, that's for sure. Probably anti-establishment, so fighting for the little guy.
Cowcalf
Member
- Location
- North of Scotland
our vets are all ladies. two of which are young dollies, like doing large animals and good enough at it. Keeping a closed herd seriously reduces need for vets
Suffolk Serf
Member
- Location
- Bury/Thetford
I always think that the pig specialist vets that I use and know have a pretty good career and work/life balance.
They work pretty much as farm consultants, visiting farms quarterly, often with a few clients out of their home region. A farm visit would typically be half a day, involving a look at the figures and a good inspection of the animals on the farm and advice on measures to improve health and therefore productivity, not necessarily involving prescribing.
They would never have a nighttime call out and rarely perform surgery, sometimes doing the odd vasectomy on boars, some blood sampling and some post mortems.
The vet that I use started out as a one man band after working in mixed practice, with just a car and a laptop.
There is now a quite high proportion of female pig vets, doing a brilliant job.
They work pretty much as farm consultants, visiting farms quarterly, often with a few clients out of their home region. A farm visit would typically be half a day, involving a look at the figures and a good inspection of the animals on the farm and advice on measures to improve health and therefore productivity, not necessarily involving prescribing.
They would never have a nighttime call out and rarely perform surgery, sometimes doing the odd vasectomy on boars, some blood sampling and some post mortems.
The vet that I use started out as a one man band after working in mixed practice, with just a car and a laptop.
There is now a quite high proportion of female pig vets, doing a brilliant job.
One man & 4 ladies in out vet practice.
All very able but main thing is they are keen on doing farm animal work. Both the practices in town given up doing farm work in the past 5 years as none of the partners in either wanted to be doing farm work anymore.
Those wanting to do farm work definitely in the minority these days. Better money to be made with pets along with very little need to be on call and a better working environment in the surgery than out on farm will see to that.
Think 80% of vet students are now female. Heard of someone who’s son is the only male student in his year group at Nottingham.
Bet he’s having a great time
- Location
- Herefordshire
My late uncle was a vet and iirc said there was only 4 girls out of 90 at vet college during his time which was during the late sixties.Today I would say the overwhelming majority at vet college would be girls and this is where the problem lies.Girls have babies ,struggle physically with some of the large animal work and ,perhaps, don't quite hack working in all weather and conditions as much as the boys and so tend to leave the industry early.
I think there should be a concerted effort to attract more boys to vet college to help reduce the shortages.
By the way this is not intended to be a criticism of lady vets just an observation.
I think there should be a concerted effort to attract more boys to vet college to help reduce the shortages.
By the way this is not intended to be a criticism of lady vets just an observation.
- Location
- Black Isle
So what can we do? Can see it getting much worse as we go on, will it get to a stage where you can’t get a vet to come out?
I think we need to be bringing this up at political level before it becomes an animal welfare issue.
My friend was considering setting up a group between some of the large farms in his area and employing a vet between them. Would mean a fixed amount per head of livestock to get the person their salary, they would be flat out at calving time but have plenty time off the rest of the year, I can’t see how it would work though as you would always need vet cover all year round so the vet is going to be tied to a sober life at the end of a phone night and day.
I think we need to be bringing this up at political level before it becomes an animal welfare issue.
My friend was considering setting up a group between some of the large farms in his area and employing a vet between them. Would mean a fixed amount per head of livestock to get the person their salary, they would be flat out at calving time but have plenty time off the rest of the year, I can’t see how it would work though as you would always need vet cover all year round so the vet is going to be tied to a sober life at the end of a phone night and day.
We usually get female vets and I have to say they are every bit as capable as the male ones we used to get.
I think agriculture in general is struggling to recruit good people but they are bad at keeping hold of the good ones to.
I used to work on a college and if there were 30 people on the course you may get 2 that we’re capable and would go into the industry, the rest were making up numbers to be honest and had very little get up and go to further themselves
I think agriculture in general is struggling to recruit good people but they are bad at keeping hold of the good ones to.
I used to work on a college and if there were 30 people on the course you may get 2 that we’re capable and would go into the industry, the rest were making up numbers to be honest and had very little get up and go to further themselves
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
Several large dairy farms have tried this over the years with limited success. As you said time off is a big issue and who covers that. The other issue is that having the same vet all the time is not good. Fresh eyes and different perspectives/ areas of interest work better. Hence why must big farms like a team of vets working together.