Gap Year Job

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Hi everyone! I'm a first time applicant currently trying to gather advice from others in the field about if an opportunity I am currently deciding to take is a good next-step or not.

I just graduated and received my bachelor's in May and equine and large animal work really appeal to me. I have an opportunity to work at a horse breeding farm not close to home where I would be doing typical farm hand work and daily care for the horses while also being able to work with the vet whenever they come to the farm. After asking advice from family and friends, I have mixed reactions of people telling me it's a good opportunity or not. My own opinion is that I feel it is a good opportunity (that would of course be a lot of physically demanding work) and that I want to pursue it, but before taking next steps I wanted to grasp advice from those in the Vet field if this opportunity is worth it to strengthen my application and diversify my experiences. As a quick summary, I have four previous animal and vet related experiences (small animal GP, mixed animal GP, equine assistant at a local farm, and I've worked with alpacas in the farm setting). I also have employment history not animal or vet related.

In addition, if I did take it, I would be living on-site. From current or previous vet students when taking on a farm or ranch job, did you live on-site? Is that what most people do?

Any helpful advice is super appreciated as I'm trying to figure out if others in the field took on an opportunity like this previously (or currently). Thank you in advance!

 

[pp9]

Hi everyone! I'm a first time applicant currently trying to gather advice from others in the field about if an opportunity I am currently deciding to take is a good next-step or not.

I just graduated and received my bachelor's in May and equine and large animal work really appeal to me. I have an opportunity to work at a horse breeding farm not close to home where I would be doing typical farm hand work and daily care for the horses while also being able to work with the vet whenever they come to the farm. After asking advice from family and friends, I have mixed reactions of people telling me it's a good opportunity or not. My own opinion is that I feel it is a good opportunity (that would of course be a lot of physically demanding work) and that I want to pursue it, but before taking next steps I wanted to grasp advice from those in the Vet field if this opportunity is worth it to strengthen my application and diversify my experiences. As a quick summary, I have four previous animal and vet related experiences (small animal GP, mixed animal GP, equine assistant at a local farm, and I've worked with alpacas in the farm setting). I also have employment history not animal or vet related.

In addition, if I did take it, I would be living on-site. From current or previous vet students when taking on a farm or ranch job, did you live on-site? Is that what most people do?

Any helpful advice is super appreciated as I'm trying to figure out if others in the field took on an opportunity like this previously (or currently). Thank you in advance!

Can you give us a breakdown on your vet hours?

My only thought is that these types of positions often don't result in significant vet hours, because that's not why you're there. Working with the vet whenever they come could look like an hour a week, an hour or two a month, etc. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be an awesome job or is something you shouldn't do, but can you determine what your vet experience would actually look like? How often is the vet out there?

As for your other questions, I don't have answers. On-site housing for farm-hand type jobs is not uncommon, though. In general, having large significant experience handling large animals is helpful for an application because it helps you stand out, but you still need really good vet experience (both in hours and quality).

 

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Can you give us a breakdown on your vet hours?

My only thought is that these types of positions often don't result in significant vet hours, because that's not why you're there. Working with the vet whenever they come could look like an hour a week, an hour or two a month, etc. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be an awesome job or is something you shouldn't do, but can you determine what your vet experience would actually look like? How often is the vet out there?

As for your other questions, I don't have answers. On-site housing for farm-hand type jobs is not uncommon, though. In general, having large significant experience handling large animals is helpful for an application because it helps you stand out, but you still need really good vet experience (both in hours and quality).

Yes! A lot of my hours I I obtained were while I was on breaks during college because I did not have a car during school that would allow me to take on a job as a student.

With that being said, on breaks, I worked as a VA in a small animal GP (~230 hours) and shadowed at a mixed animal GP (~150 hours). In terms of my other animal experiences (non vet) I have about 550 hours.

Regarding when the vet would be on the farm, I do know that they are only at the farm a few times a month from now until foaling season but they are pretty much there everyday when foaling season comes around in ~Jan-May. Given that this would be my full-time job for at least a year, my hours would be more tailored to everything repro related in these horses. But, I definitely see your point about not getting as much vet hours as I would maybe as a VA or tech somewhere else which is a concern of mine.

I did want to add that I did not grow up around a lot of horses so since equine work really appeals to me, I've been trying to 'break into' the horse world through as many experiences as possible and get a really good foundation of this part of vet med and get used to the horse world language and terminology.

Also, since this breeding farm is not near my home at all and I would be moving a couple hundred miles away for at least a year and get out of my comfort zone, is that something vet schools notice if I talk about it in essays?

 

[pp9]

Yes! A lot of my hours I I obtained were while I was on breaks during college because I did not have a car during school that would allow me to take on a job as a student.

With that being said, on breaks, I worked as a VA in a small animal GP (~230 hours) and shadowed at a mixed animal GP (~150 hours). In terms of my other animal experiences (non vet) I have about 550 hours.

Regarding when the vet would be on the farm, I do know that they are only at the farm a few times a month from now until foaling season but they are pretty much there everyday when foaling season comes around in ~Jan-May. Given that this would be my full-time job for at least a year, my hours would be more tailored to everything repro related in these horses. But, I definitely see your point about not getting as much vet hours as I would maybe as a VA or tech somewhere else which is a concern of mine.

I did want to add that I did not grow up around a lot of horses so since equine work really appeals to me, I've been trying to 'break into' the horse world through as many experiences as possible and get a really good foundation of this part of vet med and get used to the horse world language and terminology.

Also, since this breeding farm is not near my home at all and I would be moving a couple hundred miles away for at least a year and get out of my comfort zone, is that something vet schools notice if I talk about it in essays?

If you can be sure that you will get legit vet experience (ideally more than just watching the vet), then it does sound like a great opportunity! You don't have a lot of hours though, so if your academics are not very competitive I would not be taking something that won't net you good vet hours. I've done ambulatory equine repro (with the vet in his truck) and unless something is going wrong, we didn't spend more than an hour or two/week on each farm because we had 5+ other farms to get to that day. If this farm has a vet that really is out there every day, you still need to be sure that your duties will allow you to hang out with the vet for the brief time they are there. It's so often that people take a job because a vet comes weekly, monthly, whatever and in reality, they get no face time with the vet at all. I would just be completely sure.

Personally idk that leaving home is going to be good essay fodder but I'm sure it could be done well. Make sure you have a lot of proofreaders.

 

[apoptosis09]

Also, since this breeding farm is not near my home at all and I would be moving a couple hundred miles away for at least a year and get out of my comfort zone, is that something vet schools notice if I talk about it in essays?

I agree that getting more large animal hours is great. But as a horse person who has worked in and around the industry for almost a decade, I want to strongly caution about taking a far-away on-site position.

Farms love to have their employees live on site for several reasons:
1) they can pay you less (far less than the difference if you worked a normal wage and had a cheap apartment).
2) they can get around insurance requirement (almost guarantee they do not offer health insurance, and the workplace injury situation for farm workers is sketchy at best)
3) they can treat you as on-call and work you whenever they want. You can easily be expected to be on the farm for morning feed, evening feed 12 hours later, and ready to foal watch overnight.

Basically the horse industry can be sketchy af and many places will try to cut every labor corner they can to save money in a very expensive business. You may luck out an find a great place with great benefits, but that's a risk I would be cautious to move far away from my support system for if I wasn't already savvy with the ways of horse people and how to protect myself.


All of that plus the fact that it's really vet hours you need more than just large animal handling hours, I think a vet assistant job, especially at a mixed practice, would serve you much better.

 

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If you can be sure that you will get legit vet experience (ideally more than just watching the vet), then it does sound like a great opportunity! You don't have a lot of hours though, so if your academics are not very competitive I would not be taking something that won't net you good vet hours. I've done ambulatory equine repro (with the vet in his truck) and unless something is going wrong, we didn't spend more than an hour or two/week on each farm because we had 5+ other farms to get to that day. If this farm has a vet that really is out there every day, you still need to be sure that your duties will allow you to hang out with the vet for the brief time they are there. It's so often that people take a job because a vet comes weekly, monthly, whatever and in reality, they get no face time with the vet at all. I would just be completely sure.

Personally idk that leaving home is going to be good essay fodder but I'm sure it could be done well. Make sure you have a lot of proofreaders.

This is extremely helpful advice especially knowing that when you did ambulatory work the realistic amount of time you were spending at each farm. I'm wondering if there are some horse farms out there that have Veterinary Assistant positions because that might give me a very similar experience but possibly with more vet specific hours.

I'm definitely still considering this opportunity as it appeals to me and I want to continue to get a good equine foundation and knowledge in reproduction but I'm going to try to expand my search and see what similar jobs are out there that could give me more vet hours and compare. Do you recommend any job posting sites that could be good for this kind niche search?

 

[JaynaAli]

I agree with apoptosis. If you want to do it because you want to do it, that’s fine, but if you have very little equine experience I suspect you’re going to be surprised at how much hard grunt work this will come with. Live in help means lots of working hours, and at all hours of the day and night. Even if the vets are out there often, I suspect you’re going to be working, likely holding and fetching horses for the vet at best…but if you’re low down on the hierarchy, more likely you’ll be off doing the harder manual labor like mucking stalls or feeding while other, longer term employees get the “fun” and easier jobs like holding for the vet. Could it be a fun experience and teach you something? Sure. If you want to do it, do it. Honestly, a lot of time the non-vet experiences do give you things to talk about in interviews and make you an interesting candidate. But I wouldn’t count on something like this helping your app much in the vet experience department. It may benefit an app packet in other ways, but if you’re doing it for vet school purposes I think you can find more impactful experiences. With low vet hours and willingness/ability to move, I agree I would probably recommend you find a job at a mixed animal clinic instead. But if you want to do it, that’s fine.

It does make me nervous that you’d be moving hours away for a live-in situation in a role you’ve never been in before and have little experience in. Should the job turn out to be something you dislike or be downright unsafe, having your housing linked to your job can make it hard to leave. If you do take this position, I’d recommend you keep some money in savings and either be aware of other housing opportunities in the area should the need arise or have an exit plan and money to move back home. Hopefully if you take the job, you love it…but I’ve heard stories of people feeling trapped because they can’t quit because they need a place to live while they save enough money to get out.

 

[pp9]

This is extremely helpful advice especially knowing that when you did ambulatory work the realistic amount of time you were spending at each farm. I'm wondering if there are some horse farms out there that have Veterinary Assistant positions because that might give me a very similar experience but possibly with more vet specific hours.

I'm definitely still considering this opportunity as it appeals to me and I want to continue to get a good equine foundation and knowledge in reproduction but I'm going to try to expand my search and see what similar jobs are out there that could give me more vet hours and compare. Do you recommend any job posting sites that could be good for this kind niche search?

You'd be better off finding out who their vet is and doing ride-alongs with them, honestly. Or just Googling for your nearest equine/food animal/mixed animal vets