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Any Veterinarians Want to Relocate to Montana?

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I was just listening to the local news-- and the neighboring town, Wolf Point (50 miles away) has been without a Veterinarian for so long that a local community group has taken up a collection- and will build and furnish a new clinic and corrals to the vets specs, if any agree to relocate there....Then charge them a reasonable rent...

Sure would cut the load off the local guys here that spend a lot of time over there...Scobey already brings in a Canadian (3 or 4 from a Canadian Clinic switch off spending a week or two at a time) to keep their Clinic open...
 
Oldtimer said:
I was just listening to the local news-- and the neighboring town, Wolf Point (50 miles away) has been without a Veterinarian for so long that a local community group has taken up a collection- and will build and furnish a new clinic and corrals to the vets specs, if any agree to relocate there....Then charge them a reasonable rent...

Sure would cut the load off the local guys here that spend a lot of time over there...Scobey already brings in a Canadian (3 or 4 from a Canadian Clinic switch off spending a week or two at a time) to keep their Clinic open...
Click to expand...

There's an ad on the bulletin board at Auburn Univ. Vet school for a Vet to come to Wyoming (don't remember the town), but they will furnish a free house, truck, and vet facilities for a married, graduating vet with equine and bovine interests.

Not many males applying for vet school any more. Each time I go there, mostly females students are working on cattle.

They can make twice the money with an engineering degree with less work and much better hours. :???:
 
I'm sure I don't have to say it but this is a huge problem. Our Vet service isn't great. My Vet is good, but she only works 4 days a week, no emergency service. She decided to prioritize her family. There is no shortage of equine Vets, their rates are rediculous. We have one that charges twice what my bovine vet charges for a bottle of lutalyse.

Most of the students coming out of the Vet school go with small animals, they can work less and make more.

The bigger problem that I tell everyone is that Vets are our first line of defense against animal disease outbreaks and that the animals we can't get adequate care for are the food supply.

The is an area over in New Hampshire that no longer has any service at all.
 
I know a kid going to vet school in Manhattan, and hisd dad is a vet. according to him all the professors are just there for the grants and research part of the program, and teach very little. this is a problem with "education" if I were paying to send my kid to a school, I would be there ripping some ass !

one of my boys wants to be a vet, can you fellas wait 10 years?
 
A year or so ago, we took a couple horses to Texas A&M vet clinic. They have students there that do the work, with a professor supervising. The cost is alot less than any of the vet clinics around here charge. While we were there, I noticed that it was all girls. I didnt see one boy in the whole bunch (Mr Lilly said there was one boy in the room where one of our horses was havin her teeth done) But Lil Lilly asked some of the girl students that were workin on the other horse, "How many of you are gonna go into Large animal practice?" They looked at one another...thought it over for a lil bit, and out of about 40 students they could only think of one that was gonna do large animals.
Lil Lilly strictly wants to do large. She's talked to several of the A&M reps, and they've all told her pretty much the same thing. If you come into vet school knowin you want to specialize in large animals, you'll get excepted faster than if you are plannin on goin into dogs and cats. Even tho at this time they are still required to do it all in school. There is rumor that the Bush administration is trying to seperate large and small vet school, and make large animal only a 2 year deal instead of 6 years for the whole push. Also they are tryin to get a deal goin where if the student agrees to go work one year in a place that desperately needs a large animal vet that the gov't will completely pay for your vet school tuition. I sure do hope they get that implemented before she gets there. That would be awful nice for her. Along with alot of other students that might would go that route but don't because of the 6 years you hafta go to school on top of the 4 years you go to get your animal science degree before applyin to vet school.
I can't find a whole lot about this deal anywhere. I read one article in our land and livestock paper a year ago or so. I think maybe if we all would right our representatives, or somethin maybe they'd find there's more interest in this type of thing out here than they think. ??? somethin to ponder anyway.
 
FH, that's 2 years of Large animal vet school after the 4 years of regular college gettin the animal science degree. Basically what they are sayin is....they wanna break the small and large animal up and make it two seperate degrees. It takes alot longer for them to learn dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, lizards, birds, snakes, rats, gerbels and numerous other small animals they'd hafta work on, than it does horses and cattle. In the long run if they spent 2 years on horses and cattle alone, they'd probably learn more then about those two animals, than they do now havin to learn all the different animals and their ailments and cures.
So...a vet that's certified in small animals, wouldn't be able to work on a horse or cow, and visa versa.
 
Sure would cut the load off the local guys here that spend a lot of time over there...Scobey already brings in a Canadian (3 or 4 from a Canadian Clinic switch off spending a week or two at a time) to keep their Clinic open...[/quote]

You surely wouldnt use a Canadian vet would you OT? Arent you afraid they might plant BSE in your cow herd?...... :wink: :lol: :lol2: :wink:
 
That sounds quite interesting and may actually be of interest to someone like myself. Our State catteleman's association has talked also about a program to be certified as a large animal Vet Tech to take some pressure off the Vets.

I received my BS in Animal Science from Cornell, it's the same degree on paper as Pre-Vet but I focused on Dairy Management and nutrition (now wishing I did beef since that is the path I finally went back to). Anyway, there were a few classes I took with the pre-vet kids and I must say that I don't see that attitude of being there for the grants at Cornell. I was more then happy with the education I received there. I partially wish I hadn't done my first 2 years and AAS elsewhere, had I gone to Cornell as a freshmen I could have done a semester in New Zealand and/or a trimester at Cal Poly.

They have an early Vet School acceptance program where you can get accepted as a Sophomore or Junior. probably just Junior, if you are a really good student there. There was a brother in my Fraternity (Alpha Gamma Rho) that got accepted this way. This same guy, his father was going back to school to get into Vet School. Anyway, my Frat brother did about a year or two of Vet school and a large dairy near the school hired him to be there herd health manager at a very high income. He didn't complete Vet School. He was one of the smarter guys I know and could have without a problem.

There was another friend in my class, a girl who married my adviser's son. She went to Cornell's Vet school and graduated focusing on large animals when I was there gettimg my BS at the same time as her. My advisor built a dairy farm (for the herd of about 600 that was somewhere else). She was the Vet, the son was working there then they decided to leave, I forget what he did, but of course she went into Small Animals.

I thought about applying when I was in Iraq. I enlisted shortly before graduating college so I haven't touched my GI Bill. The 4 years of Vet School (isn't it 4?) didn't sound so bad, it was the fact that the classes for Pre-Vet is different enough from my focus that I'd need to do another 2 years for the perquisites. For starters, I manageed to avoid Organic and Bio Chemistry.

Some of these programs one of mentioned on the horizon don't sound like too bad of a deal for people in my position.
 
Manitoba_Rancher said:
You surely wouldnt use a Canadian vet would you OT? Arent you afraid they might plant BSE in your cow herd?...... :wink: :lol: :lol2: :wink:
Click to expand...

Too far away-- about 130 miles, but it sure helps those folks up there closer to Big Muddy's country....
 
WEa re lucky in that our area is pretty dense with lage animal vets and most are scrambling for business. They all do small animal as well but most like the large animal as an escape from the office. One of my vets is a 30 year old gal and her partner/boss ia probably a 45 year old woman so if they keep together in that practice we should have good vet service from them for a few more years.. All I really worry about is that a lot of the vets are 50+ years old and how much longer are they going to be willing to do this?

Was goingt o try vet school but a couple classes kicked my but and I decided against it.. they told us about great oportunities to be a large animal vet in eastern Montana when I as at MSU.. Real high paying jobs right out of college but they were still having trouble getting folks to go..
 
problem with shortage of large animal vets is all economics - the worst thing a vet can do is drive 30 minutes and get paid for a call. I hope whatever MID that comes down the road is administered through the vets - give them a little cabbage and avoid another government intruder.

We just lost a Dr Scheeber from the Flinthills to Eastern Montana - real good vet & nice guy.
 
From the vets I havet talked to the other problem with being a large anmal vet is those 3 am calls about pulling a calf or ac-section or whatver.... With the smaller companion anmals it is less likely to happen.. But than again around here the vet is 10 minutes away for the most part, maybe 20 if they are seeing one of their more distant clients.... But the young vet told me most of her classmates just didn't want to be bothered with the inconsistant scheduale of a large animal vet.. Wanted 8-5 or whatever the vet office was going to do...
 
Our vet charges a $75 call out fee, and that's before he ever cracks open an eyelid to look at what he was called out for. Even if it's just bangs vacs. Then if it's after hours there is an emergency fee attached onto the call out. If you have an emergency and he meets you at the office, there's still an emergency fee. Last one we had like that was about 3 years ago and it was $80 plus what he done to the horse.

The way I see it, it's way cheaper for us to load up the heifers and take them in for bangs vacs cuz even with the price of fuel it don't cost $75 to drive 25 miles.

The vets that done the surgery on Lil Lilly's horse....they don't charge extra for emergency calls....cuz that's their specialty. Stuff that no one else can handle. LOL you pay for the "emergency" cuz they aint cheap for nothin.
 
My hubby's grandaughter is a vet in North Battleford SK (hopefully she'll move here at one point), she prefers to be a large animal vet. Her brother is in his 3rd year vet college at the U of S and will also be a large animal vet. :)
A good vet here is hard to find. We have a lady vet in town, but she's terrified of horses and won't work on them. Our only option is to haul to Vanderhoof which is at least 2 to 2.5 hours from here. Thank goodness I haven't needed a vet for any emergencies............yet.
 
We've always been lucky enough to have a large animal vet seven miles from us in our nearest small town.A few years ago a young vet took over the shop and this summer made the very smart desision to marry a wonderful girl from the area who just graduated vet school this spring so we now have two great young vets :) Because these vets are the only ones in our county they're VERY busy and I understand they're being called out of the county too because theres so few large animal vets.
 
I sure wish we could get that lady Vet that was the Playboy centerfold a couple years ago to relocate up here... Told my old buddy Doc that if he brought her in as a partner I'd guarantee him that his business would triple- he could probably retire and go fishing-- and that I might even stick around a little more to drink that rotten stuff he calls coffee.... :wink: :lol:
 
BUT most large animal vets have to work on small animals too. In our area we don't have much choice as to decide if we need a small animal or large animal vet. They need to do both.
 
I understand that the large animal Vet shortage is getting so bad that the powers to be are looking at different programs to loosen up/shorten the training period/testing requirements for folks just certified in large animals-- and the use of more "Techs" that are trained in handling the everyday care of large animals, vaccinations, castratrions, prescriptions, health inspections, preg testing, C-sections and such....Now I know of several ranchers that can handle all this (and are better than a lot of vets)-but by law cannot charge for their services or order the drugs sometimes needed unless they have a friendly vet....

Altho- I've also heard that many Vets are opposing this idea as some of this stuff like preg testing, bull testing and bangs vaccinating is their bread and butter work....
 

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