The Lifestyle Vet

12/07/2025

When your patients are double checking your equipment to make sure you are prepared for the job 😂🙈🍿🦙

The Lifestyle Vet- We love your lifestyle block pets 🥰❤️🦙🐐🐑🐥

04/07/2025

Last month The Lifestyle Vet team had the pleasure of helping Hippo the pig through a difficult situation…

Hippo was referred to us from his wonderful local vet after his owners noticed that his two bottom central incisors had been snapped off at the base. This traumatic fracture of both front incisor teeth was excruciatingly painful for Hippo. He refused to eat and was most upset.

The Lifestyle Vet team assisted Hippo’s primary vet by providing some pain relief options while we waited for Hippo to be transported up to our hospital in Auckland.

Since Hippo was a 2 year old 200kg intact kune kune pig (no joking), we weren’t able to carry out his surgery in our surgical theatre. That didn’t stop us though, and we retrofitted his stable into a temporary surgery, carrying out the procedure on the floor.

Both the live pulp cavities of the tooth (roots) were fully exposed and starting to become infected. Therefore both of these teeth had to be extracted. Hippo’s anaesthesia wasn’t a walk in the park due to his sheer size, which increased his risk to all sorts of anaesthetic complications.

Surgery was a success! His two teeth were extracted and post operative X-rays confirmed complete extraction.

Our fabulous anaesthesia team led by Jess and Adam ensured his anaesthesia was a success, while Laura carried out his dental surgery.

What did we do post operatively to ensure that Hippo made a full recovery and that his pain was appropriately managed? Stay tuned for more on his recovery tomorrow!

Pig veterinary care isn’t easy. Our team are always more than happy to support other veterinarians throughout NZ. Our support services include:

- providing phone consults for vets
- providing referral services for pigs requiring surgical and medical care

If you’re a vet, and pig veterinary call-outs make you sweat, feel free to reach out ☺️

The Lifestyle Vet- Providing an exceptional level of veterinary care for your lifestyle block pets

04/07/2025

Are your sheep and goats limping a lot lately?

If you’ve given them a comprehensive foot trim and they are still limping, there may be more going on underneath the surface!

The Lifestyle Vet team are seeing a high incidence of hoof abscesses that are tracking deep into the sensitive tissue structures. Remember, abscesses don’t always pop out the coronary band or sole of the foot- sometimes they travel into deeper tissues towards the bone and can cause debilitating bone infections (osteomyelitis).

If your sheep or goat has been limping for more than 48 hours, and corrective foot trimming has not resolved the issue, please contact us or your local vet.

These abscesses can be difficult to find and it can take us a good 15-20 minutes to locate them and dig them out to facilitate draining of the infected area. Laminitis also predisposes to an increased incidence of hoof abscesses.

The Lifestyle Vet- Your lifestyle block vets 🐑🐑🐑🐐🐐🐐

09/06/2025

The Lifestyle Vet team are absolutely over the moon to be able to welcome Adam to the team! Wooooooohooooo!

Adam is one of our awesome lifestyle block vets. If you are one of our health care plan clients, you'll see Adam on a regular basis. Adam's introduction to the job started with some pig anaesthesia, llama wrangling and playing with valais lambs.

A little bit about Adam...

Adam graduated from the Royal Veterinary College, London in 2023 with a bachelor of veterinary medicine and initially worked in a mixed practice in the UK before joining us here at The Lifestyle Vet. Adam has co-authored a research paper published in the journal of preventative veterinary medicine and has a keen interest in anaesthesia and internal medicine as well as enjoying teaching veterinary students and clients how to care for all manner of lifestyle block species. In his spare time he enjoys running, hiking, rowing and generally anything outdoors!

The Lifestyle Vet- Providing an exceptional level of veterinary care for your beloved lifestyle block pets, all year round

15/05/2025

A massive thank you to Ellie, a wonderful final year veterinary student from Austria who carried out an externship with The Lifestyle Vet team for 10 weeks!

Ellie has become an absolute pro in carrying out clinical examination, handling rowdy alpaca, bandaging llamas and now has a solid based on knowledge in preventative health care for lifestyle block animals.

Ellie has become a valuable member of our team. Although we are all sad to see her go, we wish her the very best for her veterinary adventures ahead as a new graduate vet.

Good luck Ellie ☺️ We will miss you!!

The Lifestyle Vet- Your lifestyle vet 🐄🦙🐑🐖🥰

13/05/2025

Meet Angel

Angel was born as a twin last week. Her mother decided two babies was simply too much work, and Angel was cast aside by her mother. Angel started to deteriorate rapidly despite her owners intervention to feed her.

Her incredibly dedicated owners brought Angel into see us immediately. Angel was diagnosed with sepsis. She had a raging fever and her blood work confirmed a diagnosis of sepsis. She was started on an aggressive course of antibiotics, supplementary feeding and lots of TLC.

After 5 days of hospitalisation, Angel was her bouncy happy self again. She was discharged from hospital and is doing exceptionally well being back at home ❤️❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰🐄🐄🐄

We are absolutely over the moon to see this gorgeous wee patient go home.

Remember, neonatal patients develop sepsis incredibly quickly, especially if they have missed out on an adequate quantity of high quality colostrum. If in doubt, get the vet out 👌

The Lifestyle Vet - Your lifestyle block vet

12/05/2025

It was our absolute pleasure to be able to assist one of our wonderful clients on Saturday after their poor alpaca herd had been chased around by dogs all night.

These poor animals ended up with a condition called exertional rhabdomyolosis. They have been hospitalised for intensive fluid therapy, regular renal function assessment blood tests and lots of supportive and pain medication.

An enormous thank you to this wonderfully caring family for helping us wheelbarrow their alpaca to safety into our vehicle to take back to hospital ❤️❤️❤️

The Lifestyle Vet- Your alpaca vet

02/04/2025

It is our pleasure to introduce an incredibly special patient to you this week...

Meet Hazel the goat

Hazel is a 6 month old goat who was rescued by her incredible owner. Hazel had an enormous congenital cleft palate defect on the roof of her mouth since birth, spanning 12.5cm long and 1.4cm wide.

Unfortunately, the large defect caused Hazel to develop pneumonia over time due to her inability to keep her airway and food passages separate. Anytime she drank liquids, milk or hard feed, food would travel up through the defect into her respiratory tract. This food would eventually travel to her lungs, causing a severe infection called aspiration pneumonia.

Her wonderful primary vets at Vet Services Hawkes Bay decided to refer her to The Lifestyle Vet so that we could hospitalise Hazel and come up with a treatment plan for her.

Hazel was hospitalised, placed on intravenous fluid therapy, intravenous antibiotics, and other supportive medications. A week later, once her aspiration pneumonia was treated, she was finally stable enough for further intervention. Hazel was scheduled in for a CT scan and surgery at Animal Referral Centre so that we could surgically repair her large cleft palate defect! Her CT scan revealed that both cranial lung fields were damaged from chronic pneumonia.

As you can see from the photos, her surgery was a success!

A massive thank you to the surgical team at ARC, led by Lee Beaver, and anaesthesia specialist Jo Chaggas for such an exceptional job in carrying out her surgical repair and anaesthesia. Another huge thank you to The Lifestyle Vet team for caring for little Hazel 24/7, around the clock, in our animal hospital so that she could receive all of the medical pre and post-operative treatments she needed to facilitate her recovery. Finally, the biggest thank you of all to her incredible owner who was 100% dedicated in providing Hazel with a second lease on life.

This little goat has made a full recovery to date and we are over the moon to be able to share this case with our followers

20/03/2025

Haven't provided your alpaca herd with preventative treatments since shearing?

They will now be well due for the following:

- Vitamin D supplementation
- Drenching (based on faecal egg count results is best)
- Nail trimming
- Their 6 monthly vaccination booster

Don't wait until it's too late. Preventing disease is Key!

To book in a visit with our friendly and experienced alpaca team, give us a call today!

The Lifestyle Vet offers either individual one-off visits or comprehensive veterinary camelid health care plans. Each health plan is designed and customised by our alpaca vet to meet the individual needs of the animals present on your lifestyle block.

The aim of our health plans are to reduce the incidence of disease in your beloved animals. Many of the diseases that alpacas are susceptible to are in fact preventable. We enjoy teaching camelid owners how to handle and look after their animals, and how to administer preventative medications.

How can we help you?

- Drenching dependent on worm counts
- Regular Faecal Egg Counting to check worm status
- All the necessary vaccinations
- Regular foot trimming
- Regular body condition scoring
- Vitamin D injections when required
- Regular checks on your animals by a Veterinarian during visits
- Alpaca Shearing by our professional shearers (additional to health plan)
- Educational teaching sessions

For more information about our veterinary alpaca health care plans, get in touch with us TODAY!

Email: [email protected]
Call us on: 027 VET LIFE (027 838 5433)

Welcome to the Lifestyle Vet! Our veterinarians provide a gold standard service for your lifestyle block animals, all year round. We offer veterinary services, lifestyle block referral services and support services, including annual health care plans, shearing, animal burial and removal and more...

07/03/2025

The Lifestyle Vet team are excited to announce that we are looking for a veterinarian to join our team ❤️❤️❤️🐐🐑🦙👏

We are seeking either an enthusiastic recent graduate or experienced veterinarian to join our incredible team. We are offering a full-time permanent position including afterhours on a shared roster. 🥳

The Lifestyle Vet is a boutique veterinary practice, focusing exclusively on lifestyle block animal species such as sheep, camelids, cattle, goats and pigs.

About us:

Our progressive practice provides high-end veterinary services for many of Auckland’s lifestyle blocks. A regular week may include anything from implementing preventative health care services for lifestyle block animals to carrying out camelid plasma transfusions, or taking a goat into Animal Referral Centre for a CT scan.

Our practice is incredibly passionate about teaching and we provide placement opportunities for Massey veterinary students as well as other Universities from all over the world. Located in West Auckland, Muriwai beach and Woodhill Forest are on your doorstep, and Auckland city is merely a 25-minute drive away. Our practice is eligible for the rural bonding scheme.

If you are looking for a veterinary job that provides high end veterinary care for farm pets, and provides you with purpose and job satisfaction, then this position is for you! This position is available from April 2025, but we are willing to wait for the right candidate.

What else?

• You’re never alone, we work in teams of two or more
• We have in house idexx machines, ulltrasound, digital X-ray facilities and on-site surgical facilities.Advanced imaging is available off-site.
• Our clients are lovely, trusting and come to see us from all around the country
• We provide referral services for lifestyle block animal species

Why join our Team?

• We are a progressive and social veterinary practice
• We provide a positive, supportive and nurturing workplace culture
• You’ll be valued and supported, both personally and professionally
• We build positive relationships with our caring and wonderful clients

If you think this sounds like your dream job and you would like to join our work family, send your CV, along with a cover letter, as to why you think you would be suited for the role, to:

[email protected]

27/02/2025

The Lifestyle Vet team were overjoyed to be able to help this beautiful little cria called Valetta ❤️❤️

Valetta missed out on receiving colostrum within 12 hours of birth and was rapidly becoming hypoglycaemic and lethargic. On arrival, quick in house blood testing also revealed that she was septic. Bacteria managed to enter her body either orally or via her navel, causing sepsis.

An intravenous jugular catheter was promptly inserted. Valetta received IV antibiotics, intravenous fluid therapy and a plasma transfusion procedure. After 48 hours of hospitalisation she was bright as a button and ready to return home to her overjoyed owner.

It was an absolute pleasure helping treat Valetta in our hospital as a referral patient and we were happy to be able to send her back home healthy.

The Lifestyle Vet- Your lifestyle block vet
🥰🦙🦙🦙🐐🐐🐐🐏🐏🐏🐖🐖🐖🥰

31/01/2025

Have you ever noticed any small masses growing on the white-haired areas of your sheep or goat?

Have you noticed changes to the white-haired areas on the tips of the ears, nose, face or back of the body?

Your animal friend may or may not be suffering from an aggressive cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Any mass or swelling that is growing on a white-haired animal could be a SCC, a type of aggressive cancer that is particularly prevalent in Aotearoa. Did you know that squamous cell carcinomas are the most common oral malignant tumour in cats? Our farm pets are not immune to this cancer either.

What is a squamous cell carcinoma (SCC)?

SCC are tumours of squamous cells, a type of skin cell which rapidly divides and affects the skin cells abnormally. Exposure to sunlight is a trigger for this cancer and hence we may see this more type of cancer more commonly on the light-skinned or sparsely-coated areas of the body. This malignant tumour is great at spreading, and it likes to rapidly invade into vital organs, such as the lungs.

Luckily, if caught early, it may be treated depending on the size, severity of malignancy/spread, patient safety and invasiveness. This is why we recommend checking your farm pets regularly for any unusual masses or swellings, especially on the face and ears regions.

SCC can be a painful. As the skin changes, this cancer causes large ulcerative lesions that become secondarily infected with bacteria. This can predispose the animal to further issues, such as fly-strike.

What can your Veterinarian do?

If your Veterinarian is suspicious of a SCC, they will likely take a sample of the mass to try obtain a definitive diagnosis though microscopic cytology. If a SCC is confirmed, or of the tissue changes are highly suspicious for SCC, the next steps may involve carrying out additional diagnostic tests to determine whether the tumour has spread or not (metastasized). If there is no evidence of metastasis, then the SCC mass can usually be surgically removed.

If you have noticed any abnormal swellings or masses on your lifestyle farm pets, please call your Veterinarian.

The Lifestyle Vet - Helping you care for your beloved lifestyle block pets ❤

Phone 8am-5pm: 027 838 5433
After-hours Emergency Phone: 027 838 5431

[email protected]