Swine Production

My main goal in life is to become a successful veterinarian. While I am waiting out the semester to receive either an acceptance or rejection letter from the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine (please be an acceptance letter!), I have been focusing on classes (as I should be). All of the classes that I have taken thus far in my major of animal science have been purely lecture classes, where listening to a professor or instructor is the only method of learning. This semester has been a little different.

I signed up to take ANSC 4081, better known as Swine Production. There have been several days of lecture in this class, but there has been an equal amount of hands on work. Within the first month and a half of this semester, I have learned how to move hogs and get them to the proper destination, and I have learned the ins and outs of the birthing process. Last Saturday, I spent 5 hours delivering piglets from two different sows. I had to get down and dirty in order to clean off the piglets and tie off their umbilical cords. Despite being coated up to my elbows in placenta, it felt really great to be in the barn doing the very things we were currently learning about. Once a litter is born, it has to be processed. This includes counting the teats, weighting, ear notching (for identification), giving vital injections, cutting off the cord, and sometimes removing needle teeth (to prevent injuries to other piglets and/or the mother). As part of my class, I was given the opportunity to perform all the listed tasks of processing a litter, which increased my span of experience in the animal field.

Before coming to LSU, I had never been around large animals (swine, cattle, goats, sheep, and horses), so it was never in my mind set to practice medicine in that field. My goal has always been to become a small animal and exotics veterinarian, and I have spent countless hours working in a small animal clinic for cats and dogs to gain as much experience as possible. Working at the swine unit along with the experience I have gained with horses through my job at the Reproductive Biology Center has opened my mind a little to the different options I have. I still cannot see myself becoming a full time large animal veterinarian because I just love cats and dogs too much, but I feel like I could make room in my practice to visit clients with pet pigs and possibly even pet horses. We will just have to wait and see where I end up.

Peace