Frank Fusco
Member
- Messages
- 12,782
- Location
- Mountain Home, Arkansas
This Yahoo story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081003/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_vet_shortage
struck a familiar cord with me. It highlights just another reason why I gave up my cattle about five years ago. Finding a vet to treat large animals is getting harder and harder all the time. Hard to blame them, the work is difficult and, potentially, very dangerous. Kicks from cattle or horses can be crippling. Even routine procedures are hard on the back. My vet friends have been very candid with me. They say, accurately, that a farmer/rancher looks at his animals as an economic unit. If the cost to heal that animal is too high profit is lost and simply putting the animal down reduces those losses. Therefore, the vet cannot charge what he needs to make a good living from treating large animals. On the other hand, pets are 'family' to many and cost is often not a consideration. Some folks will spend anything to keep little 'Fluffy' alive. And little pets can't kick yer brains out.
Like many others, I'll bet Steve and Travis do this, I learned to do many things myself and by-pass the vet 90% of the time. Not easy, but, with animals, you do what you have to do.
Not fun, standing out in the middle of a pasture, during a winter sleet storm, bare from the waist up, your arm up the back end of a nervous cow trying to straighten out a calf wanting to be born. Well....actually....if you saved that calf, at the end of the day, it was worth it. If I were young again, I would go back to that life in a heartbeat.
'scuse the reminiscing folks. I miss my cows.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081003/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_vet_shortage
struck a familiar cord with me. It highlights just another reason why I gave up my cattle about five years ago. Finding a vet to treat large animals is getting harder and harder all the time. Hard to blame them, the work is difficult and, potentially, very dangerous. Kicks from cattle or horses can be crippling. Even routine procedures are hard on the back. My vet friends have been very candid with me. They say, accurately, that a farmer/rancher looks at his animals as an economic unit. If the cost to heal that animal is too high profit is lost and simply putting the animal down reduces those losses. Therefore, the vet cannot charge what he needs to make a good living from treating large animals. On the other hand, pets are 'family' to many and cost is often not a consideration. Some folks will spend anything to keep little 'Fluffy' alive. And little pets can't kick yer brains out.
Like many others, I'll bet Steve and Travis do this, I learned to do many things myself and by-pass the vet 90% of the time. Not easy, but, with animals, you do what you have to do.
Not fun, standing out in the middle of a pasture, during a winter sleet storm, bare from the waist up, your arm up the back end of a nervous cow trying to straighten out a calf wanting to be born. Well....actually....if you saved that calf, at the end of the day, it was worth it. If I were young again, I would go back to that life in a heartbeat.
'scuse the reminiscing folks. I miss my cows.