ELLSWORTH — A statewide shortage of large animal veterinarians has sparked the formation of LLAMA — the League of Large Animal Medical Advocates.

Much of the fieldwork at Darthia Farm in Gouldsboro is done with horses, including this 24-year-old Haflinger, Gus, decked out to shoo away horse flies. A statewide shortage of large animal veterinarians requires owner Bill Thayer to perform many basic veterinary tasks on his own.—STAFF PHOTO BY TOM WALSH

“As every large animal owner in the greater Hancock County area knows, there is a severe shortage of large animal veterinary care,” said Heather Martin-Zboray of Surry, who founded the group out of concern for meeting the needs of her two horses.

“The issue is reaching crisis status,” she said. “Several barns have lost animals due to lack of basic treatment, and scores of others go without routine vaccinations and preventative medication.”

The nearest large animal vets are in Winterport, Dover-Foxcroft and New Brunswick, she said. Ellsworth veterinarian James E. Rausch does farm calls but has stopped accepting new clients.

Bill Thayer, who works with teams of small draft horses in mowing hay and doing other chores at Darthia Farm on West Bay Road in Gouldsboro, said he once had to transport a seriously injured horse to a vet clinic in New Hampshire for emergency surgery, a six-hour trip.

“I’ve had to learn a lot of veterinary skills, and I’m glad I have,” he said. “I do give our horses tetanus, influenza and  encephalitis shots and do immunizations on our other animals, too.”

Finding veterinary care for large animals such as the Scotch Highland breed of cattle that graze along Beechland Road in Ellsworth is becoming more difficult in light of a statewide shortage of veterinarians who make farm calls.—STAFF PHOTO BY TOM WALSH

Since January of 2005, the entire state has been designated as an “underserved area” for large animal veterinary services, he said.

“The big reason why is there has been a huge reduction in the number of commercial farms,” Hoenig said. “In 1987, there were 855 dairy farms in Maine. Ten years later there were 514. Now there are 350.

“When farms were more concentrated, a large animal vet could see more clients in a day. Now they might have to drive an hour to see one client and drive an hour back. A small animal vet, meanwhile, is seeing four or five clients in an hour.”

That reality, coupled with the hefty student loan debt that many veterinary school students face upon graduation, steers many young veterinarians away from large animal practices.

“After eight years of education, it’s not uncommon for these new graduates to be $100,000 to $150,000 in debt,” Hoenig said. “There are also fewer students growing up in a rural farm environment, which means fewer people with any experience with farm animals.”

Hoenig said the statewide shortage of large animal vets also creates a public health risk by reducing the chances of early detection of animal-borne viruses and other communicable diseases.

“An outbreak of an undetected foreign animal disease in this country would be catastrophic,” he said. “Sometimes the consequences are worse than the cost of prevention.”

Heather Martin-Zboray’s

Martin-Zboray said she decided to become proactive after trying to self-treat one of her horses for a parasitic infection.

“For me, the final straw was when the only medical care I could get for my mare was the vet in Lincolnville,” she said. “She was great, but couldn’t come up, so I had to literally e-mail her digital photos of my mare and then talk with her on the phone about how to treat my mare. I finally thought this is crazy.

“Although I’ve had horses all my life, I can’t imagine ever getting another horse unless we get the vet situation solved. It feels terribly irresponsible to have an animal and not be able to care for it.

“A lot of people are really just doing the best they can,” she said. “The farmers have learned how to deal with it. But, even there, you need someone who is distanced from the animal, so they can just apply medical care for the animal rather than be emotionally traumatized by what’s happening to their animal.”

Martin-Zboray said LLAMA plans to organize seminars that will help large animal owners to acquire the hands-on skills they need to provide preventative veterinary care and emergency first aid. Eventually, she said, the group would like to organize a large animal veterinary practice and hire a team of veterinarians to staff it.

“A lot of the new graduates don’t have the financial backing to start their own practices, so they go to established practices,” she said. “So there’s some interest in trying to found a practice and hire people straight out of school. I really do think there are plenty of animals in this area to make that work.”

A second meeting of the group will be held in September. For more information, call 460-1587 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .