STUDENT DIARY
Antonia Matthews BSc
, South East London
Third year veterinary student, Royal Veterinary College
About me
I am a veterinary student in my third year
at the Royal Veterinary College. I grew
up mostly in South East London spending
every moment I could further south east
in Kent, working on farms and stable
yards. Having escaped living in London
to enjoy the fresh air of Hertfordshire with
the husband, dogs, cats, small furries,
reptiles, horses and my own small herd
of dairy goats.
Back to vet school!
The last couple of months I have had the joys of starting the
clinical part of the vet course, with more practicals, and more
lectures with direct clinical relevance. So far our practicals have
ranged from small animal dentals and learning to suture, to
assessing dairy cows for mastitis using California Milk Tests.
Our current focus is on Population Medicine
and Veterinary Public Health; it has really
brought it home how entwined human and
animal health is. Learning how essential it is
to follow the correct protocol, such as milk
withdrawal times and the enormous impact
that errors for not doing so can have; both
financially for the farm and the potential risk to
human health. We have had it drummed into
us how essential correct nutrition is in all
species; with an emphasis on the importance
of this in livestock, in managing body
condition scores during different parts of
an animal’s life cycle. This is particularly
important for maintaining the correct nutrient
levels to reduce risks of problems such as
grass tetany and milk fever. Also we have
considered the importance of trying to prevent
the current rise in obesity in small animals and
ensuring sufficient forage for horses to reduce
risks of colic and to aid correct teeth growth.
Troy Gibson, Royal Veterinary College (RVC)
and Lucy Grieve, British Equine Veterinary
Association (BEVA), spoke to RVC students
about animal welfare during transport;
providing us with an incredibly interesting
comparison between the different pressures in
production animal transport versus competition
animal transport. Both discussed the
importance of design of transporters,
emphasising the requirements for
ventilation,stocking density and safety loading
and unloading. The vet’s role in the long
distance transport of animals was highlighted;
with the need to recognise very subtle clinical
signs particularly in high level competition and
breeding animals due to their requirement to
perform and stay at peak physical condition.
The importance of local legislation was also
discussed; with the differences in EU and UK
regulations highlighted including the lack
of requirement in the UK to monitor the
temperature of the transporter and to have a
navigational tracking system, in comparison to
the requirement for both in the EU. The impact
inadequate transportation could have not only
on the performance of a competition animal,
but also on the carcass quality of meat
animals was mentioned; with the duration
of the journey linked to the prevalence of dark
cutting beef in bulls and the shrinking of the
loin area due to increased dehydration.
Although very few of us could relate to the
experiences of transporting animals by sea
and air the lectures very much led many of us
to rethink how we transport our own animals
and how we have seen and helped animals
being loaded and transported between fields
and markets.
Outside of university I have had the joy of
helping to rear the first litter of puppies from
my Labrador stud dog (11 in total!) I have
also spent more than enough hours fixing
fences and trimming goat hooves to help
remind me of at least some of the
hard work that goes into the joy of
keeping animals.
The last few weeks have very much
highlighted to me the importance of
veterinarians for not only improving and
maintaining animal health and welfare in a
wide range of different circumstances; be that
ensuring the 80,000 sheep transported from
the UK by sea are free from notifiable
diseases, to ensuring top breeding stallions
are at minimal risk to shipping fever when
travelling with the seasons between the UK
and Australia, but also the importance of
veterinarians in helping to prevent zoonotic
disease spreading to humans.
Transporting ewes
Princess and Lizzy - not quite at stage of transport
by air just yet!
The joys of puppies
WINTER 2014/2015 ISSUE
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
22
