The Rural Blog recently lamentedthe scarcity of large animal veterinarians in the heartland. The dearth of country vets in the US has recently come into the spotlight aftera long piece in Harper’s, which called rural vets “a dying breed.”
While many vets are retiring, few are opening practices to take the place of the old guard. Private practice is simply too hard a way to make a living in many cases. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has become the nation’s largest single employer of vets, most of whom work in meat and poultry plants, where they oversee slaughter.
The overwhelming majority of today’s vet-school grads take jobs in cities and suburbs, working with pets. One reason: the hours are better for urban pet vets; a large-animal practitioner is usually on call twenty-four hours a day.