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WINTER 2015 ISSUE
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
1 8
Over and out!
And what a year it’s been. It’s been a year of
firsts: my first job as a vet, my first caesarean,
my first routine fertility visit: my first ram
breeding soundness exam and my first holiday
(in a looong time)! As nice as it was to kick
back and relax in the sun of Lanzarote, after a
week of looking at nothing but scorched soils
and cacti I was ridiculously keen to get back
to good old rainy Lancashire and scan some
cows. Perhaps my next holiday will be to
somewhere with a bit more of an agricultural
interest and not quite as hot. Like Ireland, if I
can get it past the girlfriend!
As a student I never truly realised just how
much office work is involved in the day to day
life of a farm vet. After a welcome quieter
spell during the summer months we seem to
have picked up again as of late, which is a
relief because there’s only so much paper
work a man can do! I do enjoy some office
time though, especially getting to this time of
the year, and I do welcome the opportunity to
explore some less traditional avenues of work.
Recently I’ve been lucky enough to get heavily
involved with developing a new herd health
review service for our dairy farmers which
includes updates and analyses on various
parameters including fertility and infectious
diseases at regular intervals throughout the
year. This sort of service is vital to our clients,
never more so than in the current climate and
is without a doubt where the future of farm
vetting lies.
Although most of our work here at LLM is
centred on the dairy industry it’s important
that we don’t forget about our sheep and
beef clients. Off the back of our successful
Sheep Discussion Group I recently organised
a trip for our newly created Beef Discussion
Group to visit a few innovative beef farms
in North Yorkshire. After swallowing their
pride and crossing the border into Yorkshire
all the delegates had a thoroughly interesting
day touring the Yorkshire home of the world
renowned Wagyu breed and then moseying
around the contrasting but extremely
impressive Stabiliser set up just next door.
A great day was had by all and we hope
to build on this success with more
meetings/trips in the New Year.
Finally, I’d like to say good luck to all the
newly graduated vets. I hope you have just
as good a first year as I’ve had with just as
many mishaps along the way!
Well here goes my last ever article, which means a year has
gone by from the first one. Obviously time flies when you’re
having fun!
GRADUATE DIARY
Matthew Hylands
, BVM BVS BVMedSci MRCVS
Lambert, Leonard & May
About me
I graduated from Nottingham vet school in
the summer of 2014 shortly before moving
to the scenic North West to pursue a career
in farm animal practice with the Lancashire
branch of Lambert, Leonard and May.
Coming from Northern Ireland I’m well used
to the rain, however the rural Lancashire
accent was another challenge altogether!
With most of our work being dairy based
I’m lucky enough to find myself in a position
of relative responsibility having a handful
of regular routines to my name already.
Having recently finished the XLVets
Graduate Programme I feel much more
confident in day-to-day practice life and
have also managed to find myself in a
larger network of farm animal new
graduates sharing information and
experiences on a regular basis.
Outside of work I enjoy shooting of any
kind and I’ve recently bought a mountain
bike to make the most of the beautiful fells
and moors up here.
Sheep discussion group
Stabiliser unit
Wagyu Burgers
Wagyu unit