Kathryn's Farm Placement

Life on the farm

'I wanted to see what the seasonal work of a farm vet was like. My 2 week placement over Easter, with the farm team at Bishopton's Vets, gave me a fantastic opportunity to do this. They cover a variety of work including beef, sheep and dairy. Providing a range of services and 24/7 emergency care, it was a chance to see the full potential of being a farm vet.

'I was regularly a part of the routine work, including:

• dairy fertility visits
• dehorning and castrations
• bull fertility soundness exams.

'The vets were also busy with emergency procedures due to it being peak time of year for farmers. I was regularly involved in the call outs and allowed to develop my practical and clinical skills. This helped me build my confidence before I enter the workplace.

What did Kathryn learn?

'I got 'hands-on experience' with:

• difficult birthings (manipulating lambs and calves)
• performing epidurals and episiotomies
• scrubbing in on C-sections.

'Along with seeing an abundance of lambing and calvings, I also saw other emergencies which really fed my love of medicine. The ability to bring together history, presenting signs and clinical exam, to reach a diagnosis and treat the animal is one of the many reasons I came to vet school. A “sick cow” callout can be a variety of things, with a wide variety of severity of illnesses.

'I was included in multiple calls to a 'down cow', which involved diseases such as toxic mastitis, metabolic disorders, and neuromuscular diseases.'

'Along with emergency work, I visited many routine calls including fertility visits. These fertility visits enabled me to develop my skills diagnosing cows manually, working with the scanner to PD and age pregnant cows, but also work with 'problem cows' to understand why they were having trouble getting in calf, and treat them to enhance their fertility. I improved my skills in castrating and dehorning calves. We visited a farm that had some older calves that required dehorning, and this had to be done with a cheese wire.

Life as a real Yorkshire vet

'Not only did the increased caseload help my learning, but it also helped with my understanding of the demands of being a busy farm vet during peak seasons. The hours can be long, sleep is often limited, and there is often a lot of driving between farms.

A thank you to our Alumni community

'This was such a valuable experience. I would not have been able to see fertility practices closer to home due to the lack of dairy farming. Seeing such a busy farm veterinary practice was a great opportunity to reinstate some of the many skills I have learned over the last 2 years.