large animal experience

[snoopy69]

Hey everyone, I am planning to apply to vet school next cycle and I desperately need large animal experience. I've contacted some vets around my area, but they only seem willing to let me shadow once in a while. I'm looking for a job where I can learn/assist with veterinary procedures. I'm currently working at my school's dairy farm (at UGA) but I'm just milking cows with an occasional shot of oxytocin. There are no openings currently with the school's large animal hospital here either. I'm starting to worry because I would like to get more experience before I send in my application. It's so difficult to find something though. Would you guys mind giving me some advice or telling me what you did for large animal experience?

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[almostglue]

I actually have a question on this as well. I sent Snoopy a private message about where I worked since I'm in the ATL area, but for all of you others... When I was trying to shadow a LA vet I called almost every vet in the state of GA and got shot down. I finally found one vet, but when the others said no it wasn't that they already had people shadowing, it's that they had a no shadowing policy due to liability. Almost every vet school wants you to have LA experience in addition to SA (and it is really helpful to know about both going into school), but do they realize how HARD it is to find LA opportunities? Here I am providing my services for free, I realize they have liability issues, but I feel like for those of us who didn't grow up in rural areas with horses and cattle and didn't really ride horses that much there's a definite disadvantage. I mean, even for someone who rides a lot and is just knowledgeable about being around horses, that counts for something. But I really struggled finding opportunities to ride with LA vets. I finally did find one, but for those searching the forums, I urge you to start looking for those opportunities now because they're not as easy to find as you might think.

Anyone else run into these troubles? I just wonder if these veterinary schools realize the difficulty there is particularly with LA opportunities. Maybe it's just a GA thing, but I feel like it must be more widespread.

But as I told Snoopy, at least having that experience with cows, even though it might not seem like much, is better than nothing. I think they often times want to see if you know how to handle these animals and just be around them without getting yourself hurt. Anyway, that's my tirade for the morning...

 

[Bill59]

Realize the purpose of large animal experience as it relates to getting into veterinary school is twofold:

1. To get some experience handling and just being around large animals safely. That is, so you won’t do something silly that gets yourself or someone else hurt in the barn or at the farm.

2. To get exposed to large animal medicine so you have a realistic expectation as to what this branch of medicine really involves. Included in this is becoming informed about the economics of food animal production and equine clients.

Large animal experience is not to teach you diagnostic or treatment procedures. Veterinary school teaches that and to be honest, they rather not have to “unlearn you” misconceptions you may have picked up here and there in an unorganized fashion.

By the way, the same applies to small animal experience -- it shows you have some experience with safely restraining animals and have a realistic expectation about what veterinary medicine is all about.

So with that in mind:

I've contacted some vets around my area, but they only seem willing to let me shadow once in a while.

Do it. It may turn into more invovlement if they like you. Realize many veterinarians get tons of requests from prospective students, some who are more serious than others. They are often reluctant to commit to something like this full time until they get to know you.

I'm currently working at my school's dairy farm (at UGA) but I'm just milking cows with an occasional shot of oxytocin.

Actually that's great experience. Again, don't worry about medical procedures. This shows you know how to work safely around 1300 pound animals -- that's tremendously valuable.

 

[StealthDog]

I got some large animal experience by volunteering at a therapeutic horseback riding facility. I didn't need to have any prior experience, and while I didn't get any real vet-type experience, I did get much more exposure to horses than I would have otherwise. I did things like sidewalking (holding riders up in the saddle), leading, feeding and watering, grooming, and prepping the horses for classes (tack, picking hooves, etc). The head of the facility was always hurting for volunteers, so I got lots and lots of hours in!

Just another idea Good luck!

 

[PsychoLulu]

Oh wow, if you think getting large animal experience is hard out in GA, try doing it in middle of New York City! What I ended up doing to fulfil my large animal requirement is volunteering at the local children’s zoo, where there was a steer (yes, one), as well as goats, sheep, and alpaca – a semi-farm exposure, if you will. (For fellow city folk, I’ve also heard of people that worked with horses at the riding academy in Central Park.) But I do agree with the previous posts, and I’ve even heard this straight from the mouth of the former Dean of Cornell: the whole point of large animal experience is for you to get used to working with large animals. The last thing a vet school wants is for a student to get hurt or freak out and drop out of vet school the first time the student come face to face with a cow or horse. At Cornell, they’ve said their magical number is about 300-500 hours, and if you’ve done that, they would like you to move on to working with a different type of species. If you really think about it, 300 hours really is not a lot – only enough to get you used to handling an animal, and definitely not to the point where you can diagnose or treat anytime.....

 

[snoopy69]

Thanks for all the responses so far guys! You've made me feel a lot less worried about it. I guess my plan for now will just have to be calling as many LA vets as possible to find one that I can shadow.