A New Era Of Veterinary Medicine
For livestock producers the shortage of large animal veterinarians can translate into doing your own doctoring or paying high mileage charges to get a vet out to the ranch. Given the small percentage of graduates electing to focus on livestock , these issues will only become worse but developing a good relationship with your veterinarian can help insure your animals get the best care. I’m Susan Allen stay tuned for Open Range. Traditionally a country vet is called only when needed, but times are changing, as fewer and fewer graduates from vet schools elect to go into large animal practices. This change could warrant a new era of veterinary medicine, one where a veterinarian becomes a consultant. At Virginia Tech Vet school they’re testing a program where cattle producers contract for vet services on a per-cow basis. For a set fee the rancher gets a quarterly visit that would typically include vaccinations, preg checking and bull breeding soundness along with management consulting and two emergency visits a year. Not only does this help to facilitate a better relationship between the rancher and vet, but can also keep emergency costs down for everyone by creating a some sort of a base salalry for the clinic. If there are multiple emergency calls, it’s only natural to prioritize the client that they have a good working relationship with, yes that’s the ones that pay bills on time, and help support the clinic by purchasing their recommended products, even making farm trips as pleasant as possible with a cup of coffee and cookies after several hours of doctoring cattle
