Also called: Food-Animal Vet, Livestock Veterinarian, Mixed-Practice Vet
Keeps cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, and goats healthy, often driving from farm to farm with a truck full of medical gear.
Your office is a pickup with a vet box on the back. Morning might be pregnancy-checking 200 cows, afternoon is stitching up a horse that ran through a fence, and at 2 a.m. you're helping deliver a calf that's stuck. You're part doctor, part problem-solver, part counselor to worried farmers.
Rural food-animal vets often earn a bit less than city vets, but loan-repayment programs target them.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Professional degree (MD, JD, DVM…), about 8 years after high school. Bachelor's degree plus a 4-year Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM).
Ways in: 4-year college, Professional school. Training cost: Over $150k.
Majors to look at: Animal Science, Pre-Veterinary Medicine, Biology.
Growing much faster than average (about 10% over 10 years). Veterinarians overall; rural areas have serious shortages of food-animal vets.
Low risk for 10 years. AI helps read ultrasounds and track herd data; hands-on exams, surgery, calving and farmer trust stay human.
Classes: Biology, Chemistry, Animal science CTE, Algebra II.
Official data: O*NET occupation 29-1131.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.