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Call Your Veterinarian Before It’s a Crisis

Use your veterinarian as a herd health consultant rather than disaster cleanup.

It is always beneficial to have a good working relationship with your veterinarian. Veterinarians can assist in herd health management strategies and preventative medicine, rather than just helping in emergencies. Yet, producers tend to have a narrow perspective of what veterinarians can offer, especially if the veterinarian is only called upon to treat problems. If a serious health problem develops in a herd, something has already gone wrong. It’s not always easy, however, to convince ranchers they should use their veterinarian as a consultant for herd health rather than just calling when there’s a crisis.


Mark Bramwell

Mark Bramwell, veterinarian at South Fork Veterinary Clinic in Rigby, Idaho, says producers that trust their veterinarian are more likely to utilize his or her skills on the cattle operation.

Mark Bramwell, one of four veterinarians at South Fork Veterinary Clinic in Rigby, Idaho, says a good relationship with his clients can help those producers become more successful.


“If you have their trust, they will utilize your suggestions and advice. At our producer meetings, we provide information on ways these ranchers can improve their management and be more successful in different aspects that will be helpful in their business,” he says.


“In particular, we’ve talked a lot about minerals and the huge health benefits when cattle are not mineral deficient. In our region we have some severe mineral deficiencies (particularly copper and selenium). Having information that we proactively give them gets ranchers interested in coming in the door. We also have a lot of ranchers who come in to ask us what vaccines they should use, and we try to be available to answer their questions and give advice,” says Bramwell.


“Sometimes we’ll call up a client and say, ‘Hey, we’d like to sit down with you and discuss your herd health and talk about which vaccines might work best for you this year.’ We like to have a sit-down with each individual client and discuss how they can be successful,” he says.


Bramwell says it all boils down to trust. He recognizes that when ranchers feel their veterinary clinic is a place they can use to get good information, hopefully they will keep coming back.


South Fork Veterinary Clinic tries to be competitive when it comes to medication and vaccine prices. Bramwell says this encourages his clients to visit the clinic, and it helps build stronger relationships, as well as opening the door to some consultation on specific products.


“If they trust us, then hopefully they will have us out there to do their Bang’s vaccinations and their preg-checking, and then we may also suggest doing some liver biopsies to check selenium and copper status,” states Bramwell.


“If ranchers trust us, then if they have an outbreak of disease, they are more likely to call us to try to figure it out and maybe do some necropsy work and diagnostics to try to prevent future problems rather than simply treating cattle after the fact,” he says.


If the veterinarian is doing the Bang’s vaccination or preg-checking, this also provides an extra set of eyes to assess herd health issues or possible problems — to suspect a copper deficiency or some other situation of which the producer needs to be aware. The veterinarian can also check teeth, eyes, body condition scores, etc., and be able to suggest things that might help the producer not only deal with situations at hand, but also give input that might be of help in future management decisions. Many of these things can add up to a chance to fine-tune the health management of the operation, resulting in fewer losses and more profit.


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Editor’s Note: Heather Smith Thomas is a freelance writer and cattlewoman from Salmon, Idaho.






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