The future of veterinarians in dairy herd health management
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2010
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Edições Universitárias Lusófonas
Resumo
The future of the Veterinary Practice in Dairy Health Management has changed and will change more
drastically from our point of view in the next years. The consumer’s pressure and the Media are more and more concerned about animal welfare, traceability of animal products and safety of products of animal origin.
On the other hand the Farmers in Europe have to produce under strong rules (competing with other countries
outside Europe), which are normally very expensive to put in practice, and the veterinarians should adapt their
knowledge to the new challenges, because without their work and cooperation, dairy farming will have no future.
In that sense, the old veterinary practice has to go in other ways, otherwise the Veterinarians will loose clients
and the animal population in Europe will be reduced. The Dairy farmers will ask for support in other areas
besides clinical: efficacy, management, welfare, profitability, nutrition, prophylaxis, economics, reproduction,
environmental protection, grassland management, etc.
Cattle practitioners should be able to give answers in several subjects and this sets the challenge to our
profession - Veterinary preparation has to be very strong in single animal species, particularly in Dairy or beef
cows.
The cattle practitioner has to look beyond, but he should never forget that “the single animal” has to be looked at as one unit of the herd, which means that without a very good knowledge of the single animal he will be insufficiently prepared to solve herd problems, and the Herd is the sum of several animals. We all know that very often one single animal allows us to implement herd strategies and develop prophylactic programs.
We are convinced that the veterinary profession, and in our case the Cattle Medicine should have the ability to
evolve, otherwise the Veterinarian as we know him will miss the train in the next years.
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VETERINÁRIOS, VETERINARY MEDICINE, VETERINARIANS, PRÁTICAS PROFISSIONAIS, PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES, BOVÍDEOS, DAIRY CATTLE, GADO LEITEIRO, LIVESTOCK FARMING, PECUÁRIA, BOVIDS, MEDICINA VETERINÁRIA, VETERINARY MEDICINE