Country Life: Calves, callouts and 75 years of country vetting

New Plymouth Vet Group has many life-long clients like Jordan who have kept up the connection over generations.

"I was a little one at the cow shed when the vets were calling," she said.

Founded in 1951 by farmers, the group has expanded alongside New Plymouth into a mixed practice caring for livestock and pets.

The practice celebrated 75 years in November.

Farmers make up the board and there are about 75 to 80 dairy, sheep and beef official farm members of the "club".

The practice reinvests its small profit back into the clinic and aims to keep its prices as low as possible, catering for companion animals for urban clients as well these days.

Its central New Plymouth premises also cares for injured wild birds.

At the Jordan farm, Mitchell is gloved up with his stethoscope around his neck, checking on one of the heifer calves nestled in the calf shed.

Jordan told him calving had gone well so far with only a couple of bigger calves in the last couple of days.

Good spring weather had helped get their mum's colostrum into them, she said, upping the antibodies and guarding against sickness.

Jordan is one of the vet group's board members and praised the valuable service, particularly during busy times like calving.

"They drop and run and you can't really get any other professionals in any other industries to do that for you …you ring, the team triage you and where we're situated, you can have a vet on farm in 20 minutes if it's an emergency," she said.

With advances in genetics and more on-farm technology monitoring animal health, things have changed, even during Mitchell's time working as a vet.

"There's so much with genetics and with farm management plans and things," he said.

"I've only been out eight years, but I feel like even in that time, that we're calving [fewer] cows than we used to and so we are seeing some noticeable improvements."

He said work had moved more towards consultancy, education and guidance.

"We try to be very proactive and avoid problems before we see them."

Jordan said breeding for traits like easy calving and teat placement had created fewer problems which would necessitate a vet call-out.

"But you've still got to feed a cow well all year round to be able to get them in calf back in spring or whatever.

"There's no luck in farming. We've got to plan ahead and that's where the relationship with our vets comes in, whether that's nutrition or minerals, anything like that."

Vets are also an important bulwark for farmers during tough times, Jordan said, such as during a tuberculosis outbreak in the herd.

"The well-being of your animals is so important [...] them standing beside us and talking us through what would be next, it was fantastic."

She said vets and a trusted vet-client relationship were a crucial part of rural communities.

"They can be some of the first people to notice that there might be an underlying issue on a farm. It might be skinny cows or calves aren't quite going well because they're not getting the time because [farmers are] overwhelmed."

Mitchell agreed a huge part of the job was building relationships over time with farmers who often work in isolation.

"Being or trying to be a friendly face, come out and see them and have a chat and just kind of connect on that personal level can provide just a little bit of connection."

[RELATED]https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/2019049562/the-bird-nurse

[RELATED]https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/1678200/more-than-a-farm-asset-farmers-insuring-working-dogs

[RELATEDhttps://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/551789/the-not-so-lame-story-of-a-country-vet