Dr. Britney Hill grew up on farms. Her own homestead in Fitzwilliam boasted pigs, chickens, mini-horses, and more, and her first paying job was on a dairy farm. Working with large animals was natural, and always in her plan for the future.

When she graduated from Auburn University in May with a degree in veterinary medicine, that plan became reality.

“When you graduate, you can really do it all. But the large animals are really what I’m excited about,” Hill said in an interview at the Jaffrey-Rindge Veterinary Hospital in Jaffrey last week. “That’s honestly just where I’m the most comfortable.”

Hill said one of her favorite aspects of working with large animals is production medicine – ensuring the animal’s health in a way that helps farmers get the most from the animal.

Hill is now providing large animal veterinary services as an associate for the Jaffrey-Rindge Veterinary Hospital in Jaffrey. While vets are trained to work with a variety of animals during their schooling, Dr. Chip Grier, who has been running the Jaffrey-Rindge practice, said until now, he hasn’t had the facilities to accommodate large animals, or the time to make calls to local farms. He didn’t even really have a good place to refer clients to who were seeking those kinds of services, Grier said.

“It was the perfect opportunity it get an excited, young vet to join our practice. Getting young vets to come to this rural community isn’t always easy,” Grier said. Many vets, when they’re starting out, look for opportunities in more populous areas with a potential bigger client pool. “She could have picked a job where the job was in place and she could have just stepped in, and picked up the clientele. But she was willing to take it on.”

Grier said the hospital has always been a one-man practice, and when Hill worked for him while doing her undergraduate degree at Franklin Pierce University, he would sometimes jokingly invite her to join the practice once she had her degree. But as she completed her graduate work, and was looking to come back to New Hampshire to practice, Grier said he began to consider those comments a little more seriously.

“We knew each other’s personality, I had acted as a mentor to her, and I had already been debating what my next steps might be,” Grier said. “It just seemed like a good fit.”

Hill said it was always the pan to return to New Hampshire and set up practice here. She said she remembers working at local farms, and how difficult it could sometimes be to find vet care for large animals. She said one of her biggest motivations was to give back to those farms that originally instilled that love for livestock in her.

“I wanted to come back and work with those farms I grew up with.”

Now outfitted with an truck carrying her veterinary supplies, with everything from a digital x-ray to a calf puller to assist in cow births, Hill has officially joined the practice.

“The truck’s fully stocked and we’re on the road,” Grier said.

And the clinic is undergoing a significant renovation and addition to accommodate the growth. Grier said that by spring, the clinic’s addition will be complete, and will have new and larger accommodations for surgery and radiology. Grier said the construction is phased so that the hospital will be able to continue offering all of its current services throughout construction.

For more information about the services provided by the Jaffrey-Ridnge Veterinary Hospital, visit www.jaffreyrindgevet.com or call 532-7114. 

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