Selfsufficientish.com

I've read a few message on here about livestock and there seems to be a lot of recommendations not to take your animal to a vet if it's suffering. I wonder what your opinion is of your vet?

not sure which posts you mean ...

I think my vets are great, but I'd sooner spend a little on a g**gle search or a phonecall to the vet before paying for a consultation or home-visit.
And at least when I phone up & say its about a dog/cat/chicken/pig/goat etc, they try to find the most knowledgeable vet to call me back, rather than taking a guinea pig to the large animal vet!

Well if I went to see a G.P ,I'd expect him to have a basic knowledge of the treatment of a single species.Vets ,some people expect ,to have a basic knowledge of a dozen or more species.
I wouldn't expect a central London vet to be an expert on goats ,pigs or cattle.
My local rural vet is ,however,brilliant with my elderly ,diabetic dog,as well as having forgoten more about pigs than I'll ever know.(and I've kept pigs for nearly 40 years).

We went to two vets before finding a vet that was knowledgable about chickens... turns out she's also the practice's 'head of exotics' vet. I guess it's because she deals with lots of birds and their internal bits are much of a muchness. She was absolutely brilliant with our girls. The problem with the likes of hens is that their symptoms are so generic that it's often a guessing game, which inevitably can involve costly tests etc. Ours were 'pets' that really gave back (ex batties that were good layers), so we were prepared to invest in them when they got ill as we would with the family cats or rabbits. But that's not to say that we relied on the vets - it was a two-way thing, with us knowing what to look for, checking poo, eating habits, knowing when their crop/undercarriage/laying habits were not right, nursing them back to health etc. Google and a few books definitely helped out at times.

Unfortunately I think it can be a bit hit and miss, although since we got our hens back in 2006 there has definitely been more awareness of treatment for chickens, as they become more popular. Not so sure about others like goats, pigs etc, although our vets do go out to farms quite regularly as we're in a semi-rural area.

As with all professions, there are great vets and some who are not so good, I've known people have experiences where they feel maybe the vet is more interested than making money than the animal's welfare. Though this hasn't happened to me personally.
Anyway I have a fabulous vet, who specialises in livestock. However I don''t constantly call them out if there are issues, I'm quite friendly with the farmer who owns the land where I keep my animals and he's always got good advice, it has saved me loads of cash. Experience is always a fine tool when it comes to keeping animals - as is common sense.