| So, Tim, we have to do a short summary of our work experience on a farm. |
| Right. My farm was great, |
| but arranging the work experience was hard. |
| One problem was it was miles away and I don't drive. |
| And also, I'd really wanted a placement for a month, |
| but I could only get one for two weeks. |
| I was lucky, |
| the farmer let me stay on the farm so I didn't have to travel. |
| But finding the right sort of farm to apply to wasn't easy. |
| No, they don't seem to have websites, do they. |
| I found mine through a friend of my mother's, but it wasn't easy. |
| No. |
| My farm was mostly livestock, especially sheep. |
| I really enjoyed helping out with them. |
| I was up most of one night helping a sheep deliver a lamb... |
| On your own? |
| No, the farmer was there, |
| and he told me what to do. |
| It wasn't a straightforward birth, but I managed. |
| It was a great feeling to see the lamb stagger to its feet and start feeding almost straightaway, |
| and to know that it was OK. |
| Then another time a lamb had broken its leg, |
| and they got the vet in to set it, |
| and he talked me through what he was doing. |
| That was really useful. |
| Yes, my farm had sheep too. |
| The farm was in a valley and they had a lowland breed called Suffolks, |
| although the farmer said they'd had other breeds in the past. |
| So were they bred for their meat? |
| Mostly, yes. |
| They're quite big and solid. |
| My farm was up in the hills and they had a different breed of sheep, |
| they were Cheviots. |
| Oh, I heard their wool's really sought after. |
| Yes. It's very hardwearing and they use it for carpets. |
| Right. |
| I was interested in the amount of supplements they add to animals' feed nowadays. |
| Like, even the chickens got extra vitamins and electrolytes in their feed. |
| Yes, I found that too. |
| And they're not cheap. |
| But my farmer said some are overpriced for what they are. |
| And he didn't give them as a matter of routine, |
| just at times when the chickens seemed to particularly require them. |
| Yes, mine said the same. |
| He said certain breeds of chickens might need more supplements than the others, |
| but the cheap and expensive ones are all basically the same. |
| So did your farm have any other livestock, Diana? |
| Yes, dairy cows. |
| I made a really embarrassing mistake when I was working in the milk shed. |
| Some cows had been treated with antibiotics, |
| so their milk wasn't suitable for human consumption, |
| and it had to be put in a separate container. |
| But I got mixed up, |
| and I poured some milk from the wrong cow in with the milk for humans, |
| so the whole lot had to be thrown away. |
| The farmer wasn't too happy with me. |
| I asked my farmer how much he depended on the vet to deal with health problems. |
| I'd read reports that the livestock's health is being affected |
| as farmers are under pressure to increase production. |
| Well, he didn't agree with that, |
| but he said that actually some of the stuff the vets do, like minor operations, |
| he'd be quite capable of doing himself. |
| Yeah. My farmer said the same. |
| But he reckons vets' skills are still needed. |
| Now we've got to give a bit of feedback about last term's modules, |
| just short comments, apparently. |
| Shall we do that now? |
| OK. |
| So medical terminology. |
| Well, my heart sank when I saw that, |
| especially right at the beginning of the course. |
| And I did struggle with it. |
| I thought it'd be hard, |
| but actually I found it all quite straightforward. |
| What did you think about diet and nutrition? |
| OK, I suppose. |
| Do you remember what they told us about pet food |
| and the fact that there's such limited checking into whether or not it's contaminated? |
| I mean in comparison with the checks on food for humans, |
| I thought that was terrible. |
| I think the module that really impressed me was the animal disease one, |
| when we looked at domesticated animals in different parts of the world, |
| like camels and water buffalo and alpaca. |
| The economies of so many countries depend on these, |
| but scientists don't know much about the diseases that affect them. |
| Yes, |
| I thought they'd know a lot about ways of controlling and eradicating those diseases, |
| but that's not the case at all. |
| I loved the wildlife medication unit. |
| Things like helping birds that have been caught in oil spills. |
| That's something I hadn't thought about before. |
| Yeah, I thought I might write my dissertation on something connected with that. |
| Right. So, actually I was thinking... |