VET CORNER
By Karen Mantel
INNOVATIVE
PROGRAM
Two-week dairy herd problem-solving rotation, created 10 years ago,
brings together student vets from Ontario and Michigan
P
roblem-solving skills are vital for food
animal veterinarians since they diagnose and treat animals in their practice. The skills-set required to solve issues on
dairy farms involves veterinary care for individual animals and a herd level approach encompassing reproduction, calf management,
feeding and nutrition, milking practices,
barn design and overall farm management.
An innovative training program at the
University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary
College (OVC) equips fourth-year doctor of
veterinary medicine (DVM) students with
the right tools to analyze dairy herd issues.
The two-week dairy herd problem-solving rotation, created 10 years ago, brings
together student vets from OVC and their
colleagues at Michigan State University’s
College of Veterinary Medicine.
Fourth-year OVC students choose one
of four ‘streams’ in their final and clinical
year of study—food animal, small animal,
equine or rural community practitioner—
and complete rotations in various areas of
veterinary medicine throughout the year.
The dairy herd problem-solving rotation,
within the food animal stream, includes
one week at OVC focusing on Ontario
dairy herds and one week in Michigan
at Green Meadows Dairy with the farm’s
3,300-cow milking herd.
“There is tremendous value in the interaction between the students from the two
countries and the differing milking systems,” says Dr. Todd Duffield, professor in
OVC’s population medicine department.
“I think the exposure to different management styles and systems is really useful.”
The first two days at OVC focus on basic problem-solving tools, says Duffield.
“We talk to students about evidence-based
practice to help them determine if the
changes they are seeing in a herd are normal, as well as the use and evaluation of
clinical tests.”
The rest of the week includes farm visits where students spend part of the day
on-farm with the producer, herd veterinarian and OVC faculty gathering informa30
APRIL 2016 | MILKPRODUCER
FOURTH-YEAR OVC DVM students Brittany Hale and Gillian Marson evaluate
stocking density during a farm visit.
tion before analyzing farm data to tackle
the questions posed, adds Duffield.
This year students visited a 50-cow operation near Listowel and a 600-cow farm
near Woodstock assessing somatic cell
count and transition cow issues. Students
worked together on a detailed evaluation
of the problem with viable suggestions the
herd veterinarian could take to the producer for further discussion.
At Green Meadows Dairy, students also
worked in different farm management areas
each day. This provided them with handson experience with palpations, udder
health assessments, cow monitoring, assessing total protein and colostrum absorption
in calves, as well as transition cow issues.
Just like the technical and clinical skills
students master with repeated practice, the
more problem solving they do, the more
it becomes second nature, says Dr. Lou
Neuder, associate professor at MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine and director of
the Training Center for Dairy Professionals.
“This rotation was fantastic because
it allowed us to look at herd level issues
rather than individual sick cow work,”
says Nikki Dobben, a fourth-year OVC
student vet. “The rotation emphasized the
importance of looking at the big picture,
using herd level data, thorough history
taking and facility inspection.”
As a future dairy practitioner, Dobben
believes the rotation will be invaluable, allowing her to confidently help producers
investigate herd level issues and provide
them specific recommendations.
“The rotation taught me numerous strategies to define the situation at hand, and
helped me and the producer fully understand
the issue and its possible impact,” she adds.
Part of the problem-solving process is
sorting out where and how to access the
relevant data, adds Duffield.
While more than 75 per cent of dairy
herds in Ontario are on milk recording,
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