Description
Looking for a locum: calling all cattle vets!
We are looking to rope in an experienced cattle vet to join our practice on a short-term 4-month contract from mid-Feb to mid-June 2026. Bovitech Veterinary Services is based in Kalgan, Western Australia – 15 minutes east of Albany.
About the area:
We are a coastal region, with Autumn being the best time of year weather-wise to get out and about. The area has lots of beautiful beaches for swimming/diving/fishing, plenty of local wineries/breweries, places to eat out, and great walking/riding trails. Albany is the closest town – it is big enough to have everything you need but small enough for the country town feel, with plenty of social sports and outdoor activities if this tickles your fancy.
Practice details:
99.9% cattle practice – predominantly beef cow/calf herds, with some dairy and feedlot work thrown in the mix. The odd sheep case comes in every now and then. Our clients are typically larger scale commercial operations as hobby farms are not our focus. We are a 2-vet practice with a full-time support staff (Rach actually runs the show while us vets flit around pretending to do all the work). We are a team of ladies but welcome blokes to apply - as long as you can put up with us giggling at our own jokes and keep the toilet seat down.
Our office hours are 8.30am-5pm Monday to Friday (closed on weekends and evenings except for emergencies), however we work from 8am-6pm four days per week, with 8am-8.30am and 5pm-6pm being reserved for meetings, histories, paperwork, catch ups, call backs, case discussions etc so that we get out on time each day.
On call is shared 50/50, but we have very few after hours calls (and can go weeks without them). We're very flexible with swapping on-call days with one another.
We use ezyVet as our PMS and Rach our assistant takes care of all routine scheduling, getting us organised for jobs and generally making sure things are organised!
Our core values:
- Working in a safe, supportive, fun team that looks forward to coming to work each day instead of going through the daily grind. We pride ourselves on looking after our team first and foremost, followed by our patients and clients.
- Good communication and respect of others within our team and client base
- Our clients are well trained – polite, safe yards (with working crushes) and respectful of our time out of hours. We cull clients on poor temperaments, unsafe facilities or for being bad debtors.
Typical case load:
- Bull breeding soundness examinations (using Lane Pulsator V machines)
- Pregnancy testing (we run several Ibex NXT Lites machines with rectal introducers for all of our preg testing so competence in ultrasound preg testing is a must with manual palpation skills for back up)
- General emergency work (mainly obstetrics and sick animals) – we only provide emergency coverage to our regular clients, which significantly reduces our afterhours load and means we know we’re only going to properties we know are safe. We never get calls late at night/early hours of the morning as clients are well trained on what is a genuine emergency and know to call early if there are issues. A majority of our clients are within 40km of the practice, so we usually don’t spend long hours on the road.
- Basic surgeries and procedural work (caesareans, calvings, eye ablations, claw amputations, contracted tendons, mass removals/drainage, stag castrations, umbilical hernia repairs, hoof trims, dairy calf disbudding etc)
- Disease investigations/PM workups (which usually fall under the SDI/TSE subsidy programs)
- Most of our clients are Autumn calving herds, so Feb-June is typically filled with BBSE and calving related calls, with some preg testing still trickling through for our later calving herds.
Requirements
What we’re looking for:
Non-negotiable traits:
- Must be confident and competent in our typical case load (unfortunately, this isn't a position suitable for a new grad)
- Enjoys working with cattle
- Good sense of humour
- Must be a team player (there are no plebs on our team - everyone shares the workload and helps others when needed)
- Respectful of our gear
- Is clean/tidy and aware of maintaining good biosecurity between farms
- Is registered with the WA VSB
- Holds a current Australian driver’s licence (auto only is ok)
- Non-smoker
Negotiable traits:
- Preferably likes their steak less than well done
- Is quick with a pun and laughs at our jokes
- Has baking skills down pat (or at least enjoys eating home baked goods – Milly makes a mean batch of brookies)
What we offer:
- $110,000 AUD p/a gross salary
- Work ute fully kitted out with all the tools of the trade
- Roster: 4-day working week (3-day weekend) 8am-6pm with 50/50 shared on call
- Travel reimbursement and accommodation by negotiation
- Unlimited office snacks
How to enquire:
Send us an email (office@bovitech.com.au) or give us a bell on 0499 489 919.
