Vet Stories!

reality

Looking to hear your veterinary horror stories!! Things like the most costly-but-useless call outs you've ever had, or occasions when the vet got it worng?! Thanks! - Oh obviously, there's no need to name and shame

Dragous

had a vet who went to put a tube into a cows stomach one time and put it down into her lung, then started feeding a bottle into it. we were all standing there shouting at him to stop as the cow started choking. My father nearly killed him. that sam vet turned down our cattle before that for TB. he was raced from the street and got the sack soon after it

curious guy

I just think the vet call out fee is ridiculous..our vets are 15mins away and charge a rip off ireland amount for the spin out and are always trying to come out as much as the can to "follow up" :mad:

fig mclough

we had a cow heavy in calf and must have got a belt of the bull out in the field. she started to become very sick, rang the vet. he came out and of course the cow calved the calf was dead and the that was that.the vet went and said she would be fine, 2 hours later and another calf came out which nearly killed the cow. that vet never came into my yard again.

whelan1

similar to that vet calved a cow with dead calf never checked for another next morning there was another dead one but the best was one time the vet calved a pedigree angus cow for my da and when the calf was dead said sure when you have livestock you've dead stock - he never stood in our yard again

reality

curious guy wrote: »

I just think the vet call out fee is ridiculous

are they that bad?!



sounds like ye get alot of grief with vets/calving - easy to tell it's not their income that's just been born dead!
as for the vet who put the tube down a lung that's way more difficult than getting it into the stomach!! :eek:

do ye find that ye have grief with most vets, or are the majority of them sound enough?

masse5455

i have a good vet but if hes out testing r sometin eles when hes finished he ll spend an hour r two talking bout foootball ha but so far tank god ive had no horror stories

massey woman

We get a better service from our vets in Leitrin than from our doctor
Tom Crowe will be with you within a half an hour and if he cant make it John Mc Court will be with you in the mean time DAY or NIGHT
These men like all vets are true professionals who spent a serious amount of time studying in college -530 points this year entry level -and are at the top of their game
All professionals err from time to time they are human after all
One never hears of the success stories
In comparison to the pseudo tradesmen of the last 15 years they are entitled to their fees
Blocklayers were getting €1.45 a block on my travels now taking and happy with 35cent
I would prefer having a section done than getting 200 blocks thrown up ?

Sam Kade

I have a Spanish vet for over 5 years he does everything spot on, no faults with him.

snowman707

very happy with service, 8 vets (5 male/ 3female) in the practice all very good,

but the girl thats get the biggest praise from is Orla in the office, was in getting a shot for a calf one morning last spring with calls coming in every second, she calmy directed the nearest vet to the most urgent case & gave all the farmers a ring about 10 -15 minutes before the vet arrived, as shedules were re arranged.

One vet visit which I will never forget was about 25 years ago late on a saturday evening when we found a weanling heifer with red water, A young Cork vet arrived by which time the heifer condition had deteriated & we had a donor cow ready for a tansfusion.This girl had never done a tansfusion before & was slow to chance it on her own. Only 1 other vet was on call & was 40 miles away, I told her go ahead we had no choice.

Initially the heifer seemed to react to the blood & we though she was a goner, but slowly came round & began to improve. Geraldine (the vet) came in for a cup of tea as did Joe who was an electrican doing a bit of wiring in the garage.

Anyhow when Gearaldine was leaving she accidently reversed into Joe's van breaking a taillight on each vehicle.

Gearaldine became a top class vet & Joe has a successful electricial business






Nearly forget to mention they are happily married with 3 teenage kids, might never have met only for my sick heifer.

reilig

Have to agree with you about the professionalism of these men, but I feel the need to go a step further and say that the best vet that ever came into my yard was Thomas Crowe, Tom's son. He is a man who loves his job. Its all he ever wanted to do. He wasn't one of those 530 point students. He studied science for 4 years in Ireland and then got a place on a 4 year Vet course in the UK. He had to work hard for his qualification and he currently works hard in his job. He is reliable and honest.

John McCourt is a very good Vet, but he is a little bit "slippery". I like to see Thomas coming out when I call for a Vet.

Have had other vets in the past, many came onto the farm and acted like they knew it all. But just because they got 600 points in their leaving cert doesn't make them an expert or anything better than the farmer whose farm they are on. A good vet is someone who loves his/her job.

massey woman wrote: »

We get a better service from our vets in Leitrin than from our doctor
Tom Crowe will be with you within a half an hour and if he cant make it John Mc Court will be with you in the mean time DAY or NIGHT
These men like all vets are true professionals who spent a serious amount of time studying in college -530 points this year entry level -and are at the top of their game
All professionals err from time to time they are human after all
One never hears of the success stories
In comparison to the pseudo tradesmen of the last 15 years they are entitled to their fees
Blocklayers were getting €1.45 a block on my travels now taking and happy with 35cent
I would prefer having a section done than getting 200 blocks thrown up ?

johngalway

Our vet is great, but he's away on holidays at the moment. Got a calf Dad reckons has Joint Ill, rang vet, said we'd stuff here might do the job and what did he think. Said yeah, it might... But there were better medicines out there, asked what? He wouldn't say :eek: Said we could collect them if he rang the office and told them, nope he wouldn't.

I know I'll be letting our regular vet know about this when he comes back, it's not on when you have an unwell animal.

You'd almost think he was a Consultant or something more than us mere mortals.

irish_bob

the brother had a cow sick , not eating , the usual , called vet , young foreign vet from the practice called out , not long qualified , anyway , after examining the cow , she told the brother than the cow had a twisted gut and it was curtains for her , brother was sceptical , waited a few days , gave the cow bread soda two days running , cow was right as rain

Casinoking

We haven't much choice with vets, there are 2 of them in the local practise and nobody else will even call to us or any of our neighbours because "we can't, it's their area". Whole thing is sown up, they can charge what they like, and believe me they do.

squarebale

Asked famous TV vet to do blood transfusion on red-water cow. She said she "did'nt believe in them". Another man did it. Only instance worth talking about. All else good. What's all this about wanting to hear Vet horror stories anyway. He who is without sin cast the first stone and all that ****e. What about crap farmers? One who was pontificating about the worm resistance in his flock was dosing for 3 (yes three) years with a medine for coccidiosis thinking it was a worm dose.

pakalasa

squarebale wrote: »

.......What's all this about wanting to hear Vet horror stories anyway. He who is without sin cast the first stone and all that ****e......

Kind have to agree. How many people here are actually qualified to pass judgement. The animals cant exactly tell you whats wrong with them, can they? People get bad-mouthed very quickly in small rural communities. You could add mechanics to that also.

snowman707

I am often amused by the advise given by people on different threads here, who know sfa about what they are what they are speaking about, at times some of it quite dangerous & sometimes illegal.

When we call a vet, treating the animal is beyond our means, we advise the vet as best we can re the symptoms & ailment and leave the rest to him/her. Up or down we respect the vet's judgement & life goes on.

After almost 40 years farming I am still learning, as I have always said to my children do not get upset if you make a mistake.

"wise men learn by other men's mistakes fools learn by their own"

irish_bob

squarebale wrote: »

Asked famous TV vet to do blood transfusion on red-water cow. She said she "did'nt believe in them". Another man did it. Only instance worth talking about. All else good. What's all this about wanting to hear Vet horror stories anyway. He who is without sin cast the first stone and all that ****e. What about crap farmers? One who was pontificating about the worm resistance in his flock was dosing for 3 (yes three) years with a medine for coccidiosis thinking it was a worm dose.

as long as we have free speech in this country and so long as no vets are indentified , i for one will continue to make comment on all issues pertaining to farming , add to that the fact that farmers pay good money for the service of vets in this country , i take offense at any attempt to silence debate on such an issue

reilig

irish_bob wrote: »

as long as we have free speech in this country and so long as no vets are indentified , i for one will continue to make comment on all issues pertaining to farming , add to that the fact that farmers pay good money for the service of vets in this country , i take offense at any attempt to silence debate on such an issue

Ah now, I wouldn't agree with what you're saying. Noone is attempting to silence free speech. I just feel strongly about this slating of vets when 99% of them are great at their jobs and provide an valuable service to their clients. I know they charge well, but I think that they deserve it. After all, most of them studied for 6 years + for their qualifications and they are on call 24/7 (well my vet is anyway). They could have gone on and studied medicine instead of becoming a vet and then they would have an even better income with less hassle and regulated hours.

Don't mean to be a complainer, but I'm a little tired of this farming section on boards.ie being a place for a whole pile of negative stuff. While I know that we need to air issues and problems, it seems that these days not many people have a positive story to tell. Professional "recessionalists" seem to have taken over the page and brought the negativity of job losses and bad weather into everyone's life who reads this page. This bad beat moan about the vets is just a continuation of this.

Yesterday's Farming Independent had an uplifting small article about the good things that the economic downturn brought to farmers. The first thing that they said was thank god we have an EU funded single payment for the next 4 years. They also spoke about the price of oil being reasonable low which reduced the contractor costs. Grain prices are low which is bad for tillage farmers but great news for cattle finishers, Cattle exports are high which puts pressure on Irish factories to raise their prices, and finally, land prices are falling which means that for the first time, a farmer who has an interest in farming in the long term can now go out and buy land at a price that he might be able to repay off the profit from his land.

While i welcome all of your comments pertaining to farming, and feel that you make great contributions to this page, I would once in a while like to open this page and see some threads which are uplifting and inspirational (as opposed to ones that depict the light at the end of the tunnell of farming to be getting dimmer and dimmer).

A lot of the replies on this thread were positives about vets which is a statement in itself ....

irish_bob

reilig wrote: »

Ah now, I wouldn't agree with what you're saying. Noone is attempting to silence free speech. I just feel strongly about this slating of vets when 99% of them are great at their jobs and provide an valuable service to their clients. I know they charge well, but I think that they deserve it. After all, most of them studied for 6 years + for their qualifications and they are on call 24/7 (well my vet is anyway). They could have gone on and studied medicine instead of becoming a vet and then they would have an even better income with less hassle and regulated hours.

Don't mean to be a complainer, but I'm a little tired of this farming section on boards.ie being a place for a whole pile of negative stuff. While I know that we need to air issues and problems, it seems that these days not many people have a positive story to tell. Professional "recessionalists" seem to have taken over the page and brought the negativity of job losses and bad weather into everyone's life who reads this page. This bad beat moan about the vets is just a continuation of this.

Yesterday's Farming Independent had an uplifting small article about the good things that the economic downturn brought to farmers. The first thing that they said was thank god we have an EU funded single payment for the next 4 years. They also spoke about the price of oil being reasonable low which reduced the contractor costs. Grain prices are low which is bad for tillage farmers but great news for cattle finishers, Cattle exports are high which puts pressure on Irish factories to raise their prices, and finally, land prices are falling which means that for the first time, a farmer who has an interest in farming in the long term can now go out and buy land at a price that he might be able to repay off the profit from his land.

While i welcome all of your comments pertaining to farming, and feel that you make great contributions to this page, I would once in a while like to open this page and see some threads which are uplifting and inspirational (as opposed to ones that depict the light at the end of the tunnell of farming to be getting dimmer and dimmer).

A lot of the replies on this thread were positives about vets which is a statement in itself ....

ok , you think they are worth every penny , i think they are far too expensive and i also think they cynically lobby the dept of agriculture to insist on unesscessery measures like blooding cows every thirty days if the farmer wants to move the cow , this exercise is nothing but a handy money making racket for the vets , thier is also the matter of the huge mark up they have on medicines , vets are on average 20% more expensive for worm dose than other retailers , add to that , they have been trying to corner the market for years now in order to gain a monopoly on all medicines , they succeeded with the mastitis and dry tubes


p.s . a vet is a far handier job than a doctor

convert

I think there are a lot of good vets out there, but as with everything, a few bad ones get the others a bad name. That said, we had a vet out to do a C-section and he ended up opening the cow on the wrong side! Needless to say, he was made to continue on and he carried out a successful C-section from the 'wrong' side.

Also had a vet out recently who was accompanied by a 5th or 6th yr vet student who didnt realise that cattle had raspy tongue!

fig mclough

i agree there is plenty of good vets out there, but for a person who got 600 points in their leaving cert and did 6 years collage/work experiance i expect a good service for the money i pay them!

leg wax

convert wrote: »

I think there are a lot of good vets out there, but as with everything, a few bad ones get the others a bad name. That said, we had a vet out to do a C-section and he ended up opening the cow on the wrong side! Needless to say, he was made to continue on and he carried out a successful C-section from the 'wrong' side.

Also had a vet out recently who was accompanied by a 5th or 6th yr vet student who didnt realise that cattle had raspy tongue!

we do sections on both sides down here , the vets in belgium must be all bad vets, my only complaint they are a little strong with there charges,

reilig

irish_bob wrote: »

ok , you think they are worth every penny , i think they are far too expensive and i also think they cynically lobby the dept of agriculture to insist on unesscessery measures like blooding cows every thirty days if the farmer wants to move the cow , this exercise is nothing but a handy money making racket for the vets , thier is also the matter of the huge mark up they have on medicines , vets are on average 20% more expensive for worm dose than other retailers , add to that , they have been trying to corner the market for years now in order to gain a monopoly on all medicines , they succeeded with the mastitis and dry tubes


p.s . a vet is a far handier job than a doctor

Then its the Dep of Ag that you need to lobby and criticise - and I'd be in 100% agreement with you. I know that my vet is one of the cheapest around here for worm dose or anything like that. He is even cheaper than the local co-op. Also, if you find a PM product cheaper than our vet from another retailer, he will have no problem writing you a prescription for to get it.

You cannot tar all vets with the one brush. And if you compair vets to doctors, then Vets have a much harder job than doctors. (well large animal vets anyway). They always have to go out to see their clients, have to work in wet and sh!tty conditions. Have to perform on the spot proceedures. Have to work with wild and dangerous animals....... do I need to go on.

If people have an issue with testing, then their issue should be with the Dep rather than the vet.