There are plenty of things to do before the sun comes up. You could make a cup of coffee, stretch, journal, check emails, or sit in the darkness anxiously awaiting the phone alarm. You could also have your arm, and probably part of your shoulder, deep inside the rectum of a cow. You could be […]
Herd Health Checks: A Vet Student’s Diary
Hour 1: Two classmates and I carpool to a 10,000-cow dairy, arriving at 8 am to catch the vet as he comes out of a monthly meeting with the herdsmen. The vet is eager to begin work, so he passes out skeins of rectal sleeves, pulls on the ultrasound goggles, and opens the door to […]
The Veterinarian’s Role in Mastitis Treatment
Historically, a veterinarian was typically called to a dairy farm to treat individual cows with mastitis. In modern dairy farming, most individual cases are taken care of by farmers directly, based on treatment protocols that were designed with the help of a veterinarian. The veterinarian is still involved, but more on a herd-level basis instead […]
