Whenever I mention to someone that I am studying veterinary medicine, they always comment on how fun it must be to work with dogs and cats. While I do love traditional pets, there is an area of veterinary medicine that is often overlooked and underserved: large animal medicine.
A large animal veterinarian’s role encompasses a lot more than just treating sick cows and pigs. It is daunting that large animal vets are a scarce commodity, and some of their duties may be left behind.
What Does a Large Animal Vet Do?
Yes, a large animal vet does treat a depressed cow when a farmer calls or a blocked goat that comes into the hospital. However, their work affects much more than these individual animals. They are protecting our food supply as well.
It starts with good herd management. Veterinarians help the farmer create a health plan for the herd and evaluate the animals’ living conditions and welfare. They also help manage reproduction of the herds through breeding management, breeding evaluations, and birthing processes to reduce disease transmission and ensure safety.
This larger role of protecting society by ensuring a healthful food supply and preventing disease outbreaks is called “One Health.” It means that the health of people, wild and domestic animals, and the environment is interdependent.
Reasons for Decline in Large Animal Vets
So why is there a large animal veterinarian shortage? Short story is … we don’t know! There are some amazing—and scary—statistics regarding this shortage. According to a recent article in the Altoona Mirror:
- …only 5% of practicing veterinarians in the United States are food animal veterinarians — working on food/fiber/milk-producing animals.
- About 50% of rural veterinarians — large and mixed animal vets — currently in practice are within five years of retirement.
- Nationally, about 3% to 4% of graduating veterinarians enter livestock practice. However, only 50% of rural veterinarians are still in rural veterinary practice within five years of graduation.
Some reasons this may be the case include that large animal veterinarians typically experience more job-site injuries, more ER and on-call duties, and poorer working conditions than small animal veterinarians. Additionally, most veterinary graduates have substantial student debt, and large animal veterinarians typically make less money than small animal vets.
All this to say, the need for large animal vets is only increasing while the amount of people practicing large animal medicine is slowly dwindling!
Illinois-Educated Veterinarians Are Prepared
I have always had a passion for large animal medicine, and this has only increased while at Illinois. We get lots of hands-on practice with large animals that strengthens the love for cows, horses, goats, etc. in all students!
The Illinois veterinary curriculum does not allow students to “track” by species. Instead, it does a great job of preparing all students for all animals. We are ready to respond to a large animal emergency, if needed.
By Annie Marlowe, Class of 2026
