Any Large Animal/Small Ruminant Enthusiasts?

[Finnsheep]

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I have been a lurker here for awhile and while I have gotten some great information from here, I couldn't help but notice that the large animal/production animal people seem to be few and far between. I know that LA/FA medicine is the vet career for me and in particular I love small ruminants and also bovines.

So what got you interested in this field? What areas of vet med in the LA/FA areas interest you the most (therio and herd health for me, also genetics). How much support did you get? What prepared you- raised on a farm, worked on a farm but not raised, great LA vet experience, etc.? I currently manage a flock of about 40 sheep and goats, done some cattle work, and have had excellent LA/FA experience. I will be getting summer internships in beef and dairy and also hopefully one at a sheep dairy about an hour away.

 

[jemappellejane]

My small ruminant experience is limited to my animal nutrition project last semester where I had to create a feeding plan for a year for a flock of sheep. That about sums it up. But I do love me some sheep and would love more experience with them!

 

[cowgirla]

I'm a mixed animal person. I've got major soft spots for goats and dairy cattle, as well as horses and the usual small animals.

 

[Jamr0ckin]

I milked sheep one summer... It was amazing. That started my love of small ruminants...

Sent from my DROID RAZR using SDN Mobile

 

[psilovethomas]

Love goats! I milked dairy goats (by hand😱) everyday last summer. Also love dairy cows. I want to be a mixed [er/cc] vet.

 

[VetDrKate]

I've worked on beef cattle ranches for the last 12 years in middle of nowhere SD and LOVE IT! 😍 I love the cows and horses and I adore the people...they are all like family to me. Also, I did a summer internship with a rural vet out there which just solidified my desire to work with ranchers and help them! I want to do mixed, but primarily LA working with cow/calf operations. I'll have a few small ruminants of my own too 😀

 

[wolfspeaker]

I'll be most likely focusing on LA/FA. Grew up with horses, but would prefer not to work with them. Something about the owners.

For the last 10 years, I've work on various farms, swine and dairy. Found I absolutely love dairy, but still love swine. Will probably focus more on dairy. Not sure if I will also do some small animal, on the side, or not. Most smaller farms have cats and dogs, so I might as well. 😎

 

[pigsatuga]

Yay Food Animal!! Yes, I am into food animals too, as if you couldn't tell by my name 😀.

I too grew up on a farm and now work mostly with pigs in research. However, I also have an assistant position at a mixed practice where we see LOTS of goats, as well as cattle, horses, pigs etc. But I have a new appreciation for goats and have been very surprised at the sheer number of small ruminant owners in my area.

As for areas within food animal, I like research a lot, but I have interest in herd health and lately the more I am exposed to a mixed practice (and knowing how practical it can be to do both) I have been considering that as well. Good to "meet" other LA enthusiasts 😎

 

[Lab Rat83]

I'm also a mixed animal person. I was working with an embryo transfer vet and fell in love with dairy cows. I love their personalities and I enjoy working with the farmers. I also worked on a large dairy farm (340 milking cows, large for Atlantic Canada standards) and again adored the personality of a dairy cow.

 

[PetPony]

I want to do large/food animal! I really like the sheep and cattle and I'm starting to like the pigs, too. 🙂

And I'm also interested in Therio and herd health, but also want to learn more about holistic/alternative medicine as it relates to food animals.

 

[ViaBea]

I'm also interested in becoming a mixed animal vet.

I love goats and have a small herd of them. They're definately my favortite animals. I also grew up next to a dairy farm (as a kid, I had some of the cows named after characters from Barney and such). I just started getting large animal vet experience though.

 

[CanHardlyWait]

I'm pretty sure that I want to do mixed animal-SA and FA , and unlike the rest of y'all I have never worked on a farm. Or even touched a cow before. I do have husbandry experience working in small zoos and petting zoos, working with bison, deer, goats, sheep, wild turkeys and mini horses (also pumas, bobcats, black bears, vultures and more). I'm basically a city girl who wants to be a country girl.
I'm driven by a desire to live in a more sustainable manner, closer to nature and with smaller environmental footprint. Ideally I want to have a small farm and live in an agricultural community. I want to work within the current food animal production community to increase food animal health and welfare, while maintaining adequate production. (I am also interested in tackling this issue from a public health viewpoint, so I'm possibly leaning toward tracking for that.)
I can't wait to get to school and meet some grew up on the farm types so that I can get dirty and start learning what y'all were practically born knowing.

 

[CanHardlyWait]

And I'm also interested in Therio and herd health, but also want to learn more about holistic/alternative medicine as it relates to food animals.

👍👍 me too!

 

[LivestockDoc]

I've loved cows since I traveled with family to Ireland and stayed on a dairy farm when I was 10. Got even more enthused when I moved to the Triangle area (NC) where there is huge support for small farms, sustainable agriculture, etc. I've had my own sheep flock, and been the caretaker for a sheep farm. Definitely echo the sentiments of CanHardlyWait about wanting to farm myself and live (and support) that type of community. I want to live where I hear nothing but the sounds of nature. Hard to come by these days.

 

[T_Rose]

I milked sheep one summer... It was amazing. That started my love of small ruminants...

Love goats! I milked dairy goats (by hand😱) everyday last summer.

I milked a goat last summer! It was an interesting experience. It is a goal of mine to one day milk a cow, but the farm I could help at does it by machine. 😛

I'm not a huge fan of food animals, but I will be working with sheep in a few weeks! It will be an adventure, and I'm excited about it. I grew up around neighbors that had sheep, cattle, and horses, but I did not interact with them much except occasionally the sheep.

 

[Goatherdess14]

Me!!

I grew up on a small farm with goats, goats, and more goats. I've raised dairy goats for 15 years and Boers for 8. Also club lambs; now I have Dorper sheep. I worked on two alpaca ranches through high school and now have a grand total of two Suris in my parent's backyard 🙂.

I would LOVE to have a predominately small ruminant/camelid practice, but let's be reasonable and think about loans.

I'll probably end up mixed animal, or (fingers crossed!) the food animal side of a mixed animal practice.

 

[futurevet7]

I am a food animal person! Grew up on a farm in eastern SD where we have herds of beef cattle and horses as well as a flock of sheep, all of which I've shown in 4-H. My main goal is to be a primarily large animal vet back home. I'm a fan of everything except for pigs, after working with them in research, I'm not too excited to work with them!

 

[Packen]

I can honestly say that if you asked me this question 365 days ago, I would have flat out said SA for me, MAYBE equine.

Now it is a totally different story. One requirement here is that we complete about 6 weeks of husbandry work at farms divided among different species. I absolutely loved working on the sheep/cattle farm. The chicken farm wasn't horrible. The pig farm was ok, but much of my distaste for that placement stems from the farmer himself.

Because farming is a huge part of the society here, LA/FA medicine is a huge component of our studies. I had zero experience with farm animals before starting here. I don't think I ever touched a cow before this year. I am loving almost all aspects of LA/FA studies, especially those dealing with ruminants.

So now I have no idea what the future will hold for me. Unfortunately, in the areas where I will probably end up living in the U.S., truly mixed practices are not as common as they are here. I guess time will see.

To the OP, if you are really interested in small ruminant medicine, I would strongly suggest looking at Dick Vet (not sure where you are in the application/vet school process). The research they are doing on flock health here at Roslin (where they cloned Dolly😎) is amazing. I may be a little biased though 🙂

 

[scb44f]

I'm interested in mixed practice, but I didn't have any experience with any type of large animal or ruminant until a couple of years ago. I really enjoy working with cattle, even if I feel a little behind the curve during palpation labs. I guess that just means I need to keep going to them to keep learning 😉

As for small ruminants, I restrained maybe 2 or 3 goats for vaccinations before vet school. The more I learn about them, the more interesting they are, so maybe I'll end up working with them.

Anyway, I started really getting into cattle about 2 years ago when I started shadowing a vet who works at a sale barn, and has a primarily large animal practice. It was so interesting to me that when I got back to the clinic I shadowed at normally, they started letting me know when they were doing farm calls so I could schedule them in and go.

 

[Megascops Asio]

I've loved cows since I traveled with family to Ireland and stayed on a dairy farm when I was 10. Got even more enthused when I moved to the Triangle area (NC) where there is huge support for small farms, sustainable agriculture, etc. I've had my own sheep flock, and been the caretaker for a sheep farm. Definitely echo the sentiments of CanHardlyWait about wanting to farm myself and live (and support) that type of community. I want to live where I hear nothing but the sounds of nature. Hard to come by these days.

The triangle area is great! 👍

I don't have any FA vet experience (sadly). I have a few hours of working with goats, but nothing vet related 🙁. I'm definitely interested in getting some experience with goats and sheep whenever I get into school 🙂xf🙂. Love small ruminants! I would absolutely love having a small farm in the future.

 

[RGLynn]

Before I came to college I had never touched a cow - aside from being headbutted by some dairy cow at an Amish farm when I was a little kid on vacation - and if you had asked me about large animal practice I would've laughed and said it's not for me.

I was a biology major freshman year but wanted some experience in the animal science department of Virginia Tech, so I picked up a minor in animal science...they have better classes for pre-vet students anyway. The intro class required you to do some basic handling of all the farm animals. Thought it was pretty cool, in fact I loved the curriculum, so I ended up changing major to animal and poultry science instead of bio.

Around this time I joined the animal nutrition club, which was dead. We had one meeting at the beginning of the semester, enough to get me on the listserv for it - golden. The professor who advised the club does research in dairy cattle/ruminant nutrition, and he needed manual labor for a large feed study. I ended up doing that, and through that met the PhD student who I now spend most of my time in the lab working with.

Since then I've had lots of experience with cattle, beef and dairy - which is what I want to study. My boyfriend runs a dairy with about 120 lactating cows and god knows how many heifers (they even run bulls instead of AI, which has been a fun experience for me), so I've gotten experience working on the farm and figuring out how things work on the commercial side rather than just research. I can't imagine life now without working with large animals (namely my beloved cattle ), so different from before college!

I want to focus on nutrition in vet school, both for large and small animal so I'm hoping to go somewhere with a good "mixed" tracking system (Virginia Tech has a good one, thankfully, and it's in state), but if I had to pick just one right now...I honestly don't know if I'd go large or small. Probably large animal. Just not horses. Sorry horse people, no matter how many I work with, I just don't want to do equine haha.

 

[Tiger369]

Hey Finnsheep,
Large Animal/Small Ruminant seems pretty interesting to me. I noticed that you live in MI too. If you know of any good places to get large animal experience, I'd really appreciate it.🙂 Because I have not gotten any experience in that area at all.

 

[Camelidcrazy]

My first year scrubs...

Why, are those llamas in my pockets? Yes, yes they are.

Nerd alert.

 

[Megascops Asio]

My first year scrubs...

Why, are those llamas in my pockets? Yes, yes they are.

Nerd alert.

👍👍 Its ok. ~Nerds Welcome Here~

 

[pigsatuga]

My first year scrubs...

Why, are those llamas in my pockets? Yes, yes they are.

Nerd alert.

Lol! Pretty awesome! 👍