Work in Vietnam

Hi all,

It has been a  little while since I posted some news but it has been busy and i needed a little time to get some photos organized.. I have not moved around the countryside much in the last 3 1/2 weeks just hanging out around the place. It is soon going to be 5 weeks since arrival, so time is flying and soon will be "over the hill" and counting the weeks to home departure.

All is going well, work has picked up but overall I do not think I work as hard as I do home, even though I try to.. I am enjoying lots of aspects of the work - teaching (and learning!!) being the absolutely satisfaction of being here. As everywhere there are always aspects you do not like but such is life -you have to try to keep enjoying.

The vietnamese are great people. The vets are dedicated ( specially given the circunstances they have been landed on), eager to learn and thankful for what we do for them. The other side of the coin is that we learm lots from them as well, specially if you o look around and abserve how life can be so simple and yet enjoyable.

Check the photos below. They  are mostly from the project and will give you an idea of what the whole thing looks like. One thing that I have noticed here as far as the animals are concerned - they get hot and strugle with the heat, but they get lots of feed and are generally in very good body condition, and when the weather cool a little, they seem to be in heaven, and they get immediate medical care should they need any.

Calf sheds. These are individual pens, with supervision 24/7 by shed workers under 24/7 roster of assigned vet. Some calves now are kept in pens of 10 or so due to lack of shed space..

A view of surronding area as seen from the farm. At a distsnce is the lake, which was formed by damming the river Sao. Lot of water is drewn from it, filtered by high tech equipment and used at the farm.

Cows comming out of milking parlour

Milk tanker . The milk travels north to a processing plant where it is packaged in 200 mls UHT cartoons and sold.

Cow bales in milking shed. Pretty automated. To the left you a a stainless steel gutter that collects all urine and manure so the almost none falls in the pit or on the workers heads... I can think of many in NZ who would love it like that!!

Panorama of sheds -They are big!!! Easy 120-130 long by about 50 wide

Calving shed

When possible, theycultivate the bedding to try to get it to dry....

This looks nice and tidy!!

Filtration unit . Probably buy a small farm with the costof this thing

Feeding lane. The girls love their tucker and eagerly await for the sound of the tractor

Hospital pen . Here you have surgery cases, lame and any cows that are not well enough to walk to milking three times a day

I was born to be a montainneer!! A cow enjoys the cool top of a mountwin of sugar cane straw before it gets spread out

Shed di not want to come downd

Son, one of the vets, treating a calf








She is not dead. Just lame and being transported to the hospital, travelling first class.

She gets landed

but finds the day just to bloody hot!

Hoof trimming. The team is set up, Duc on the right is the Vet Supervisor, trained the techs and now really just supervises. Great fellow



Herdsman and hoof trimmer.



Mr Nam, Farm 1 vet supervisor giving a presentation

Hospital cow being milked

Shed lanes . These connect all sheds to the milking parlour. No rain, no sun, just a little mud!





Milk Parlour .Once milking finishes, the gates open and the cows walk out

New Vet training Class. Most of them joined the company recently and go through a series of seminars that we deliver.

There is 24 hour vet care, 24 hours calving watch and very likely, in fact almost 100% sure, there will be no rotten calving (s) for me to do...