HnkyDnkyZZFarm
Chirping
I would suggest being very careful and considered. You already have a full time job as a Vet; taking on the homestead is a LOT OF WORK and a lot of time. If you're already working forty hour weeks outside of the home, then you can probably add another twenty to thirty hours doing farm stuff.
Here's the direction I would go. I would head out, check it out, and see if employment at your desired location was realistic and possible.
THEN... and this is important...
I would work towards becoming a large animals/ livestock vet. I know, harder than it sounds right? but there is such a need for good livestock vets who want to HELP people rather than taking their money for screening for everything under the sun when quite obviously we can put two and two together, goat over ate, goat got enterotoxemia, goat needs antitoxin, and all the B-12 in the world isn't going to fix this and so many vets will refuse to do a thing unless you turn them loose with your wallet and give them the same degree of financial freedom in treatment as you would to save the family dog that got hit by a car. Wouldn't it be nice if we had more livestock vets and in particular more livestock vets who aren't looking to price gauge the horse show markets, and thereby a lot of small farmers simply cannot afford their services, or cannot afford to search for kidney stones in their buck, because the vet was told that's where you always start, when in medical school "even if there's an arrow through him" (as I was told by the only livestock vet in a sixty mile radius.) The buck died. The antitoxin was OTC, could have been gotten for 12$ at the local feed store. He overate on greens and had all the classic signs. It was the first big bad one we had done, so I had no idea there was a fix for this. Instead of getting a shot of antitoxin, the goat seized painfully for two days and then got a different kind of shot. Because she wanted to look for kidney stones and wouldn't budge an inch and wouldn't share the information she had unless I was willing to let her look for kidney stones and metabolic disorders and everything else under the sun checking the goat in at her location for as long as it took. Instead, she gave me some B-12. I actually think he suffered longer for this, since we were bypassing the rumen and giving him a nutrient boost every few hours, drenching, etc. but no sooner than it started to wear off, we were right back where we started and worse. It allowed him to linger longer, and keep us wondering if we could fix this longer, when the vet should have at least told us, if he's seizing, especially like that, there is no fixing this.
or worse, she was utterly ignorant of goats and really didn't know what to do for me, and would have probably charged me my farm, my soul and my firstborn, and the goat may have died anyways because of her lack of experience with ruminants. Time was of the essence.
First of all, you could make a huge difference for other homesteaders who are not able to afford top shelf bills. Even if every animal on the farm isn't a buddy animal, or might even be on track for the freezer, doesn't mean we don't want them in good shape or that we would allow them to be in pain, just that we can't always afford to put much more than XYZ into an animal.
If you worked with local farmers and feed stores, and yes, even the kill guy - putting new farmers and homesteaders in touch with a good kill guy, and supporting them through the process when they first start out, that would also be super amazing for people. They would be ECSTATIC to see you. You could build an amazing practice and even have vet to farm services. Teach people about how to humanely attend to their meat herds, and how to keep their chickens pest free and happy for the duration of their lives!
because THEN your homestead is an asset to your practice. Plan to build out your home and your barns, structures and pens to support your amazingly successful practice as a livestock vet, because you will likely accumulate some rescues and as you get a feel for local markets and start building your own herds, then you will have all the resources and community in place to support that!
Good luck to you, no I don't think it really changes you. I think you just get better at the parts of you that caused you to want to do it in the first place.
Here's the direction I would go. I would head out, check it out, and see if employment at your desired location was realistic and possible.
THEN... and this is important...
I would work towards becoming a large animals/ livestock vet. I know, harder than it sounds right? but there is such a need for good livestock vets who want to HELP people rather than taking their money for screening for everything under the sun when quite obviously we can put two and two together, goat over ate, goat got enterotoxemia, goat needs antitoxin, and all the B-12 in the world isn't going to fix this and so many vets will refuse to do a thing unless you turn them loose with your wallet and give them the same degree of financial freedom in treatment as you would to save the family dog that got hit by a car. Wouldn't it be nice if we had more livestock vets and in particular more livestock vets who aren't looking to price gauge the horse show markets, and thereby a lot of small farmers simply cannot afford their services, or cannot afford to search for kidney stones in their buck, because the vet was told that's where you always start, when in medical school "even if there's an arrow through him" (as I was told by the only livestock vet in a sixty mile radius.) The buck died. The antitoxin was OTC, could have been gotten for 12$ at the local feed store. He overate on greens and had all the classic signs. It was the first big bad one we had done, so I had no idea there was a fix for this. Instead of getting a shot of antitoxin, the goat seized painfully for two days and then got a different kind of shot. Because she wanted to look for kidney stones and wouldn't budge an inch and wouldn't share the information she had unless I was willing to let her look for kidney stones and metabolic disorders and everything else under the sun checking the goat in at her location for as long as it took. Instead, she gave me some B-12. I actually think he suffered longer for this, since we were bypassing the rumen and giving him a nutrient boost every few hours, drenching, etc. but no sooner than it started to wear off, we were right back where we started and worse. It allowed him to linger longer, and keep us wondering if we could fix this longer, when the vet should have at least told us, if he's seizing, especially like that, there is no fixing this.
or worse, she was utterly ignorant of goats and really didn't know what to do for me, and would have probably charged me my farm, my soul and my firstborn, and the goat may have died anyways because of her lack of experience with ruminants. Time was of the essence.
First of all, you could make a huge difference for other homesteaders who are not able to afford top shelf bills. Even if every animal on the farm isn't a buddy animal, or might even be on track for the freezer, doesn't mean we don't want them in good shape or that we would allow them to be in pain, just that we can't always afford to put much more than XYZ into an animal.
If you worked with local farmers and feed stores, and yes, even the kill guy - putting new farmers and homesteaders in touch with a good kill guy, and supporting them through the process when they first start out, that would also be super amazing for people. They would be ECSTATIC to see you. You could build an amazing practice and even have vet to farm services. Teach people about how to humanely attend to their meat herds, and how to keep their chickens pest free and happy for the duration of their lives!
because THEN your homestead is an asset to your practice. Plan to build out your home and your barns, structures and pens to support your amazingly successful practice as a livestock vet, because you will likely accumulate some rescues and as you get a feel for local markets and start building your own herds, then you will have all the resources and community in place to support that!
Good luck to you, no I don't think it really changes you. I think you just get better at the parts of you that caused you to want to do it in the first place.
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