2024-04-21 12:30:00
Disinfected boots on his feet, syringe in hand, the latter jumps over the barrier blocking a heifer for a blood test.
Based in Privas, the capital, Romain Deloncle, 39, devotes two-thirds to pets, a third to farm animals.
Monitoring livestock is more physical and much less profitable, as the cost of care cannot exceed the value of the animal.
A veterinarian prepares to take a blood test from a heifer on a farm in Marcols-les-Eaux, March 19, 2024 in Ardèche Photo AFP / JEFF PACHOUD.
And unaccounted transport time: “we are not going to charge the cost of a bac+7”especially to farmers who earn little, explains the veterinarian.
Yet, “It’s rewarding to go to farms to help people do their work correctly and protect the population once morest possible epidemics”he continues, also praising the “trust” with breeders. But he thinks he’ll drop out before full retirement.
Caesarean section
The shortage in rural areas affects the whole of France, with “scarlet” territories, such as Ardèche or Yonne, notes Matthieu Mourou, of the National Order of Veterinarians.
Veterinarian Marina Abbadie (l), helped by two farmers, removes the cast from the hind leg of a calf, April 11, 2024 on a farm near Avallon, in Yonne. Photo AFP / ARNAUD FINISTRE.
The causes: insufficient number of veterinarians, a new generation with “different needs and ways of working“, fewer young people who turn to “the rural”, he explains. In 2023, only 15.2% of veterinarians were dedicated to this activity.
“In my class, around forty of us out of 160 chose the rural one”testifies Marina Abbadie, 26 years old, graduated last year from the Toulouse veterinary school.
Veterinarian Marina Abbadie (d), treats a sick sheep on April 11, 2024 on a farm near Avallon, in Yonne. Photo AFP / ARNAUD FINISTRE.
The young woman, originally from the Pyrénées-Atlantiques where she grew up in the countryside, “mightn’t see myself doing anything else”. More “it’s true that there are constraints and first of all the guards: every other weekend, plus two to three nights every week. It comes back quickly, when you are woken up for a cesarean section in the middle of the night and ‘we must attack once more in the morning…”
Kneeling behind a sick cow ready to calve, Marina Abbadie thrusts her gloved arm up to the shoulder into the animal slumped in the straw, in order to check the calf’s condition.
“We try to do our job correctly but, sometimes, we don’t have time (…) Yesterday, I did 500 km during the day”she confides.
Veterinarian Marina Abbadie (d) examines a cow ready to calve on a farm near Cussy-les-Forges, April 11, 2024 in Yonne Photo AFP / ARNAUD FINISTRE.
Determined to specialize in obstetrics, she came to farming land in Yonne, which she did not know.
Last October, the young veterinarian signed a job contract in a practice in Cussy-les-Forges.
“A dozen veterinarians are missing in the department, out of around sixty”assesses Marc Arbona, vice-president of the order of veterinarians of Burgundy-Franche-Comté.
Indispensable
To attract young people, the Yonne department has been subsidizing interns since March 2023: 300 euros per month for accommodation, as much for travel costs.
Veterinarian Marina Abbadie (d), helped by a farmer, vaccinates a herd of young cattle on April 11, 2024 on a farm near Avallon, in Yonne. Photo AFP / ARNAUD FINISTRE.
“It can help”believes Marina Abbadie, installed too early to benefit from aid. “Above all, the territory must become attractive”an allusion to the depopulated countryside, often emptied of shops and services.
The lack of veterinarians can be serious, according to her.
“Sometimes, we arrive at a farm that hasn’t seen a vet for a long time. For the animals, it’s often too late”.
“No vet, no farming”adds the Ardèche breeder who sees it as a mission of “service public”. “We are obliged to have a veterinary advisor” responsible for health monitoring of livestock, he explains.
Veterinarian Marina Abbadie (d), helped by a farmer, removes the threads from the eye of a sick sheep on a farm near Avallon, April 11, 2024 in Yonne Photo AFP / ARNAUD FINISTRE.
Faced with the situation, he “learned to be independent”has “deal by phone“, or even to take down an animal himself at the Privas clinic.
“I am not going to see Romain for mastitis (inflammation of the udder) or a lambing that is not going well”he says.
And he chose to raise Salers cows, a rustic breed that does not have “almost no worries at calving”.
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