Suggestions for summer experience...

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TCFC

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Hey guys, I am hoping someone can give me some suggestions, or at least a nudge in the right direction...

I am a first year vet student, and I want to go into large animal medicine and I have a particular interest in herd health and bovine.

However, I do not have a whole lot of hands on experience working with cattle. I would like to work for a summer and get some hands on experience in a setting where everything is not perfectly planned and set up (such as out labs in vet school) as this would DEFINITELY not be what I would encounter in the real world.

So I guess the question is, what would be the best route to go to get some experience working around cattle. I want to get more used to how the cows move, how to better predict what they are going to do, basically getting a better idea for what cows do and why they do it. Our school has cows, but they are in a tie stall system, so we don't get much opportunity to work amongst a group of free cattle to get a feel for them.

One option I was looking into was working on a feedlot out west, as I have some connections out there and should be able to get a job. Another option I MAY have is to work on a dairy farm (cows housed free stall, milked tie stall). It is pretty difficult to find a job with a large animal vet that is willing to pay out here... the large animal vets (that don't practice exclusively equine) in Nova Scotia are not overly abundant...

Which job option would you think would give a better experience, or, can you think of anything other ways of gaining cattle experience.

Any advice at all would be extremely helpful.

Thanks in advance,
TCFC
 
TCFC":22jkgtyu said:
Any advice at all would be extremely helpful.

Thanks in advance,
TCFC

See if you can find a summer job with a salebarn. That will give you a whole lot of hands on experience with impromptu situations, how cattle move in relation to their surroundings, understanding cattle with regard to stress, and how to handle them in that situation. It will also provide a world of experience with working with a wide variety of cattle and their different temperaments, the results of not properly caring for cattle, and the results of a poor feed program.
 
Why not chck with a LA animal vet and see about serving as an assitant.

dun
 
I wouldn't go for a stockyard- all you will learn is bad handling most likely.
Find a backgrounder or preconditioner-- you'll get all kinds of experience with hands on doctoring of calves- and you'll see the progress or lack there of from start to finish.

If thats a no go- next would be a feedlot.

There are LOTS of established work/study internships set up in the US-- do a computer search or talk to the school advisor-- some even offer credits.

I'd have you here-but its a long way and the pay would suck :)
 
Do you fix fence, dig post holes, build barns, use a tractor, fix tractors, fix broken equipment, or bale hay? Ah, just pulling your chain. Sounds like you have the right thoughts. You just need a place to learn. :lol:
 
A dairy would give you experience with everything from newborns to mature cows, lactating, dry, calving, etc. You'd get to see and likely deal with all ages and stages of cattle - and there's a LOT of strange things you can see on a dairy. Most of my experience with problems and treatment haven't come from dealing with my own herd. :p

The pay shouldn't be the most important thing right now - right now the most important thing is the experience. I've heard a lot of people talk about new vet school graduates they've encountered (shadowing the owners' main vet) that they'd never let work on their animals - because they lack common sense. You really need not just the experience, but also to learn some common sense stuff about working with the animals - a person can learn a lot by listening, and I've heard vets take a graduate out of their consideration for partnership, simply because the graduate came out for a week or two and showed a definite lack of common sense, and a large animal vet just can't have that when working around livestock.

A dairy might be easier to learn at because often times mature milking cows are calmer than calves or cows at other places might be (ie stockyard, feedlot, etc). Not to say dairies are always that way -- I've worked around a lot of young stock and fresh heifers that are wild as March hares. :p
 
The pay shouldn't be the most important thing right now - right now the most important thing is the experience.

I know :( Honestly, if I could afford to volunteer for a summer I would do it, but there is no way to. Being ineligible for student loans really sucks! It is really frustrating because I see so many awesome unpaid summer internship opportunities that I would give my right arm to do!!

I will definitely look into the things that you all have mentioned. There is a salebarn about an hour from my house... I will look into maybe doing some work there :) (let me tell you, Nova Scotia is not a prime place to live if you want lots of cattle experience... now if I wanted to be a fish vet on the other hand...)

Thanks for the advice guys!

TCFC
 

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