By Dr. Anna Grace Awilli (BVM)
Many farmers and animal owners express a lot of frustration regarding access to veterinary services and veterinarians are hard to find.
Even when many farmers who are willing to pay for the service of a veterinarian, they often find themselves victims of masquerading quacks instead.
These quacks, whose actions have greatly tarnished the name of the veterinary profession, prescribe unproven treatment regimens, a common trick being to administer several medicines with the hope that one or two will hit the target and cause recovery.
By sheer luck, they often do recover while seemingly harmless in the short run and these unprofessional methods of treatment and drug use often leave untold damage in their wake.
Sometimes the sick animals relapse resulting in an even higher cost of treatment while other times, a bigger problem is encountered with future infections and sick animals refuse to respond to treatment or will take a lot longer to recover.
This phenomenon that now constitutes a global emergency is known as Antimicrobial Resistance and is a threat to both human and animal health.
In all this, farmers encounter the biggest losses and faced with frustration plus uncertainty while farmers are forced to gamble with their high investments plus normally taking the matters of the health care of their animals into their own hands.
Of a fault largely not of their own but expose themselves to untold risk when one finally finds a good veterinarian who they can afford to help and it’s often too late. Animals have died with incalculable losses incurred with dreams and hopes killed.
What then for a farmer to do?
As a farmer and/or animal owner, the challenges around animal health and welfare are the first indicator that your greatest asset in your farming journey is having on hand of qualified and competent veterinarian to walk with you.
As a farmer, while your immediate objective is the recovery of your one or two sick animals, a truly competent veterinarian is looking at and beyond this immediate need to offer a holistic intervention which will potentially rid you of your challenge from its root to its secondary causes.
In the mind of a veterinarian, when faced with a sick or poorly performing animal production wise, they are thinking of the animal’s health, welfare and disease in relation to the farm environment, disease causing agents and vectors, and the individual animal or group of animals as one complex entity.
This inter-connectivity forms the basis for disease diagnosis, treatment plan, and other relevant Interventions on the animal or farm to get rid of the problem, control it or mitigate the losses as appropriate.
This conceptual framework is what sets a veterinary professional apart and guarantees you better results on your farm however small it is.
Beyond basic treatment, a veterinarian is able to advise you, make relevant product and market recommendations, develop a herd health plan and synchronize husbandry and treatment activities on your farm in a way that maximizes the potential of your farm.
The solution then is to look for a veterinarian before you actually need them and it takes time but it is not difficult.
The best time, then, to look for a veterinarian is not when your animals are sick and dying, but when they are healthy, so that you and the veterinarian can develop a plan to keep these diseases from gaining access in the first place.
Take time to look for a good veterinarian in your area, and have their contact on hand for when you need assistance.
The writer is an experienced veterinary clinician with a 3years pastoral veterinary medicine practice experience in rural communities of Karamoja . Email: annagraceawilli@gmail.com or telephone: +265751392520/+256776350870
