jerry27150":311u3ez2 said:
depends on the vet, some will charge more than the cow or calf is worth, plus they often lose the cow even if you call them asap. you have to ask them how much before they do some things & some will just experiment with your money. it is hard to find a good vet anymore
My DH and I are fairly experience cattle people. Been involved with cattle our entire lives, and have spent time working with feedlots, that teaches you a lot. I'm not afraid to call a vet if I need to, if I'm not sure how to deal with a situation I will call him. We have a very good vet, he is basically a cattle vet, but in this area, he deals with all animals, large and small. I can call him, give him the symptoms, and he will tell me what he thinks, and how to deal with it. Sometimes that ends up being a trip to the vet, or having him come out here, but often enough, it is just his advice that we are getting, and that is free. We buy all our vaccine, our RFID tags and most of our medicines through him, that = free advice. Plus, you have to remember, that you can't get many drugs without a prescription, so you better have a relationship with a vet if you may ever need to use any of those drugs.
Some good advice is to ask what a vet will charge for their services. Find out what a farm call costs, his after hour charges and mileage. If you can, take the animal to the clinic, that will at the very least save you mileage and the farm call cost. Never seems to save on the after hour charge, most emergencies seem to happen after hours. Most vets will also charge observation charges, so realize this up front. If you have him out to treat one animal, and figure since he is there you will have him look at another animal, he will charge you for that, even if he doesn't actually treat the second animal. Don't be afraid to ask for an estimate of what the cost will be to treat an animal. And know upfront what you are willing to spend to treat the animal. Our vet is good that way, in many cases if the cost is going to be real high he will ask if you want to spend that on the animal, before you spend a whole bunch on it.
Realize too, that medications are not cheap!! LA 200 and Penicillin are pretty cheap, but then, they only work in very limited circumstances. Nuflor runs about $1/cc and drugs like Micotil, Draxxin and Excede are even more expensive. Vaccines are cheaper of course, but since you are usually treating a bunch of animals, they add up, $2-$4/ head may not sound like much, but they add up!
IMO for those of you who don't believe in using a vet, a dead animal is 100% loss. Treating one may mean you are going to take a loss on the animal, but at least you should have a chance to recoup some of the value of the animal. Of course, this is where experience comes in, knowing in the first place whether there is a decent chance of having the animal recover. A broken leg for example is something that cannot generally be fixed in an older animal.