I wish I knew the answers too. I fear the horse is out of the barn and the doors are closed. What I do know is that I PERSONALLY have established a relationship with my vet. She sees my horse every six months. She gives my vaccines. She does my dentals. I call her for routine musings. Even if it’s just because I have a concern. Itchy sheath. Check. Coughing Check. And I schedule appointments and am a good client. In return she is an amazing vet. Who when the shit hits the fan will be there. Sadly I think a lot of rural medicine has died by the wayside. And at least a small percentage is poor clients that only call for the apocalyptic emergency.
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I agree… but that isn’t feasible in some parts of North America. There aren’t enough animals to justify a 24/7 emergency clinic within a reasonable drive.
The old school mixed practice vets could cover these areas when everything was cheaper. I don’t think it was ever easy, but they could get by. Yet the cost of everything today makes it almost impossible for a young vet to start up that kind of business.
That leaves huge swaths of North America with… nothing. Tons of open pasture yet you have to treat your animals like it’s 1887. It’s not right.
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I guess that depends on your definition of “a reasonable drive”. Like I said, I’m a minimum of 1.5 hours from emergency care, but more likely 2-2.5 if it’s something that will need ICU or possibly surgical care. A lot of people wouldn’t consider that “reasonable”, especially if they live in a more populated/urban area. In the rural South, that’s just a fact of life. I mean, my hometown is nearly an hour from the nearest decent HUMAN hospital.
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Is 5+ hours with a shocky horse a reasonable drive? Because that’s what it’s like some places and I don’t think that is a viable solution.
I know people who won’t haul their horse 25 minutes to a hospital because it’s too far and inconvenient. I know others who haul 3+ hours for routine work. It’s all relative. But North America still has some very remote places.
I’m right there with you with the human hospital part…
I think the bottom line is accepting the reality of your situation. If you live in BFE. Make some plans. Have a trailer. Learn to recognize early signs like @Ghazzu suggested. Yes there may be catastrophic issues…,. Learn how to euthanize if need be. Other than that. I wonder about what I’ve seen in human medicine. Concierge care. If you are in a vet desert. Consider pooling enough clients together and pay a yearly fee. Then use your vet for everything. Seriously, Why do people expect a veterinarian to set up shop in the middle of nowhere when they have no income. Life is about risks. If you live in BFE. Make plans.
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No, I wouldn’t personally consider 5 hours a “reasonable” drive. But I can think of areas out west where the drive in to any kind of significant town could very well be that much. Rare, but they do exist, I realize. I think that, in that kind of area, you have to have a certain “old West” resourcefulness and realism. Choosing to live that remotely means that you are more likely to end up in an unresolvable situation. By moving to a place like that, you choose to live with the potential consequences. Is it fair or “right”? No. But it’s reality.
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And if you live 5 hours from anywhere, how on earth do you think an ambulatory DVM is going to be able to cover such a wide territory? They’d spend most of the day driving from one emergency to another.
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I think in the end sadly life is about choices. If you live 5 hours from care you have to realize that. Make plans. Know the limitations. You are the steward of the animals in your care. If you are behind the eight ball from jump you have to know that. And accept it or move.
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This is probably a stupid question, but why is vet school so costly? Why are there so few of them? Why can we not make schooling more accessible to increase the number of vets?
I realize this isn’t an immediate solution. But isn’t the answer, at least on some level, to get more professionals out there? Or, I guess, a lot fewer pets. 
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Not all owners are equipped physically or mentally to deal with medical situations pertaining to their horses. Many just cannot handle these situations or the stress involved.
Should there be more vets in practice? Sure, but you cannot force people to become veterinarians.
Are there ways to encourage people to join the profession? Yes, and there are already ways that is happening. I know someone who had loan forgiveness for doing so many years of mixed practice in a rural location in the Northeast, but that might not work for others. He happened to marry a woman from that area, so that situation worked for him, whereas it might not work for someone else.
When it comes right down to it, you need to know your horses, be aware of potential issues, have a backup plan in place, and then a backup for your backup plan. If you live in an area where veterinary care is hard to get, maybe it is not a right situation to own horses.
There are reasons there are rules and regulations concerning veterinary care and medications, just like in human medicine. Those rules and regulations are for the protections of both the owners and animals themselves.
It also come down to this- treat your vet like they are gold. Call at the first sign of an issue. Have the horse ready when they pull in. Make sure your horses is safe and able to be controlled for vet work. Say thank you sincerely and often. Offer your vet a cold or hot drink, a snack, use of the bathroom, etc. before they leave. Pay immediately.
Bottom line is both large and small animal vets are getting harder to come by. Adjust accordingly!
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Out of curiosity, is it relatively common for veterinarians to be able to be made a partner in a clinic?
I’m just a nobody, but my vet clinic appears to do this. It appears that this helps them attract and retain vets.
Also since they have multiple vets on staff, they rotate weeks on call. Presumably this allows for more work life balance than say a single vet practice with said single vet trying to be on call 24/7/365. Obviously multi vet practices might not be sustainable in areas with low demand but if I was a vet I reckon the idea of being on call half the time would be more appealing than being on call all the time.
I think it depends on the practice. Many practices are being bought up by companies like MARS or VCA, so because of those situations I am sure partnership is limited or nonexistent.
My equine/ large animal vet works for a sole owner practice that does both small and large animals, with multiple vets. The owner is in his late 70s.
My vet and another had been trying to buy the practice for well over a year. The owner has upped the price of the practice, as well as jerked them around saying a corporation was interested in buying it, plus they had issues with the financing as the assets of the practice did not work out to be what the owner said they were worth.
It has left my large animal guy thinking it would be easier to go out on his own, but that has its own set of problems. We see many sole practitioners in this area that get in way over their heads. They cannot practice veterinary medicine and run the business side of things well. It seems to end up with many missed appointments and unreturned phone calls.
There are no easy answers for this crisis!
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The last colic episode we had, we did experience a delay due to our vet having multiple emergencies. She did ask if I would be able to do an IV. I didn’t have the equipment or the know how any more, but since she asked, we might be able to work something out.
It depends on the practice. Unfortunately a lot of clinics are being bought by large corporations (MARS, VCA, PetVet, etc).
For example, one practice I worked at was sold to PetVet (terrible company). When they bought the clinic they phased out the large animal side and built a grooming/boarding facility instead. They were one of two large animal clinics in the area.
Another practice that I worked at it is common for younger staff members to buy out retiring vets. It does work well and the practice is still locally owned which is fantastic. They rotate who is on call (both large and small animal) which gives a better work life balance but it unfortunately still isn’t great.
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Okay, I have been thinking about this tonight while doing my wifely duties- that is feeding humans and animals, and clean up!
I have a slightly more unique perspective as I have been a horse owner for 40 plus years, am married to a PhD of Animal Science, who taught for a major university for 20 plus years, and have raised both hogs and cattle, from farrowing and calving until we sell them.
Livestock producers tend to be much more self sufficient than horse people.
For both hogs and cattle, we do our own vaccines, castrations, treat things like hoof abscesses, pink eye, fly strike, etc. I have pulled many, many piglets, and while we have not needed to pull many calves, we have and are well prepared to do so. We do our own pregnancy checks on cattle, and used/ use artificial insemination on both hogs and cattle, as well as live cover.
For our horses, dogs and cats we use a vet very regularly, sometimes more regularly than I would like. Vaccines, heart worm testing and deworming, Coggins and health papers, flea/ deworming for the cats, fecals on all of them, gelding.
And then there are emergency calls. This year alone, I have had 2 emergencies. One, a tree branch came down on a horse, slashing his chest open and causing multiple fractures of an eye socket, which required the vet to be out. The second, a horse coming in from the pasture with a nail in his sole. For that issue, the vet talked me through pulling the nail, marking the wound and I picked up a tetanus booster and long acting antibiotic injection to give the shots myself. The farrier followed up with care on that issue as my vet and farrier work together.
I am in a state that strives to help support livestock producers as much as possible through tax breaks and financial assistance through state supported programs. For example, this year I was partially reimbursed for the purchase of 2 bred heifers and a new herd bull. Last year I received a significant amount of money to build a hay barn. I do have to meet a minimum herd requirement, adhere to random inspections and complete continuing education requirements.
This brings us to the continuing education requirements. Both my husband and I each take a “Master Beef” course every 3 years. It can be completed either in person or online through our county extension office. It takes between 15-20 hours. In person runs 2 nights a week for 6-8 weeks at our local ag center, and they even feed you dinner. Online can be done live or through recordings.
We are instructed in things like bio security, current diseases, breeding, vaccinations, fly control, how to buy and/ or produce quality hay, pasture management, calving protocol and procedures, how to evaluate quality livestock, and estate and succession planning. My county has also added a 2 day 8 hour per day program specifically for women in agriculture.
I have learned a lot from this training. It has also helped the bottom line of our farming operation in multiple ways.
As far as I know, there is not a program out there similar to this for horse owners. Could horse owners benefit from something like this? Certainly, but I am not sure how it would work or if horse owners would utilize it.
I worked in the equine nutrition industry for 15 years, and we had a difficult enough time getting horse owners out for evening or weekend meetings to discuss nutrition even when we provided a meal, an educational talk and an “entertainment”-type talk with a BNT or celebrity rider.
I will say this as well. I have never shied away from sticking a hand or arm in a sow or cow when needed. I cannot see myself doing that with a horse. Just a totally different species in a totally different situation.
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Who pays for this? Is it funded from taxes? Somehow funded by the beef or dairy industry?
I was recently chatting with my vet who said she prefers large animal because owners usually know something about horse care and husbandry. People often buy dogs or cats without knowing the first thing about how to take care of them.
I thought that was an interesting perspective, especially when so many vets are going into small animal medicine.
More (and better) education seems like a great idea, but how to fund it? And how to get people interested, if they’re already not pursuing learning on their own?
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We pay a nominal amount for the course, somewhere around $75. Our county extension agent wrangles local businesses to pay for meals, and the state provides PhDs, veterinarians and extension agents as speakers.
Obviously, in our situation as a beef producer, it is to our benefit to participate due to the state ag programs we can then participate in. I am not sure what would motivate horse owners with no financial incentive, other than learning for their own edification and to better the lives of their horses.
So who pays for that? $75/head can’t possibly cover 6-8 weeks of instruction. Are the lecturers all state employees? So it’s funded by state taxes? Or what?
Super curious as to the details.
My guess would be the extension office.
That is who here has such programs, the extension agent in the county/region decides which programs to promote, according to perceived needs.
Our taxes at work.
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@Simkie, state Extension programs are funded (mostly) through tax payer dollars. They are a federal mandate (1914 Smith-Lever Act). Ph.D. Extension Specialists in every state are faculty members of the state’s Land Grant university and typically have joint Extension/research or Extension/teaching positions. The Master Beef program that @cutter99 is talking about is also partially funded by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s “Beef Check-Off” program via a $0.50/head fee that is assessed on all cattle sold in the state (https://www.tn.gov/agriculture/department/business-development-division/livestock---genetics/livestock-marketing-resources-rd/beef/tennessee-beef-promotion-program.html).
@cutter99, there is also a Master Horse Owner program available through UT Extension. Ask your agent about it! I don’t know that Smith County has ever hosted one, but other middle TN counties do regularly.
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