Learn about the essential tools for livestock advisors

Find out how the Livestock Advisor Essentials course is equipping advisors to better support their clients.

Dr Matthew Boon is a livestock veterinarian who participated in MLA’s 2024 Livestock Advisor Essentials course in southern Australia.

Delivered through a series of face-to-face workshops over 12 months, the Livestock Advisor Essentials course brings together livestock advisors from a range of backgrounds to:

• build technical knowledge across fundamental livestock topics
• provide the opportunity to network with fellow advisors
• build confidence, skills and resources needed to further support clients.

Matt completed his Bachelor of Veterinary Science at James Cook University in 2015. His initial plan was to become a small animal vet, but he found he preferred the large animal component of his degree, including the opportunities and lifestyle that comes with working with livestock. After graduating, Matt moved to Victoria and began working in rural mixed practice clinics. In 2023, he decided to start his own business, ‘Prime Livestock Veterinary Services’, as a solo operator.

“Once I started working for myself, it was great to chase the things I was passionate about and build on the skills I wanted to – plus I learnt a lot about business management,” Matt said.

The desire to offer more to clients

When he first started his business, Matt’s day-to-day work was predominantly focused on cattle reproduction such as pregnancy testing, bull fertility testing and artificial insemination. In addition, he also worked with general herd health, sudden death investigations and tending to sick animals. Although he enjoyed this work, Matt wanted to offer his clients more to help support their farming businesses.

“I really wanted to get into other sectors in the livestock and agribusiness areas to give start-to-finish services to my clients,” he said.

Matt saw a gap he could potentially fill which would help add value to his clients’ businesses. This is where MLA’s Livestock Advisor Essentials course showed Matt how he could open up that conversation with clients.

“You don’t really talk to a vet about business management and pasture – clients go to their accountant and agronomist – but I really wanted to fill that gap.

“I could see it but didn’t know how to start the conversation and give them the tools and information they needed.

“I was exploring what avenues I could offer my clients, when I came across the Livestock Advisor Essentials course,” Matt said.

Lessons from leading experts

Throughout the course, Matt learned about business, feedbase fundamentals, genetics and reproduction, the value chain, and people and influence skills. The deliverers of the course are consultants and advisors who are leading experts in their respective fields.

“A standout after completing the full course was that it pushed me into certain subjects I wouldn’t have sought out myself,” Matt said.

As part of the genetics and reproduction workshop, delivered by Dr Jillian Kelly from AHN Consulting, the attendees discussed useful questions advisors could ask to help open up conversations with clients.

“I now have questions I can ask clients to start those conversations. For example, Jillian talking about asking clients what their standard reference weight is for a cow or sheep. You could do so much with that one question,” Matt said.

“When I reflect back on every farm call I go to, there were opportunities where I could enter into this conversation with them and get the ball rolling.

“Now I need to practice it, and the good thing about each workshop is you are able to stay in contact with the deliverers.

“You can start asking clients those questions, and I can email the deliverer to help with what to do with this information and to check if I’m on the right track.”

‘Putting out fires’ turns into preventing them

As a vet, Matt sees a lot of the routine work he does as ‘putting out fires’. He is usually called after the issue of a sick animal or stuck calf has already happened. After completing the course, he now feels he has the confidence and resources to support clients to take a proactive approach.

“Now I need to apply what I’ve learnt – really start looking for those opportunities outside what I know and am comfortable with.

“When I’m ‘putting out fires’, I want to start the conversation – I want to start switching from putting out fires to preventing the fires from beginning.”

Matt and his family recently moved to Queensland and he is now looking forward to exploring opportunities in northern Australia.

Livestock Advisor Essentials is a national course run in partnership by Meat & Livestock Australia and Pinion Advisory. The 2025 course will be run in northern Australia. Find out more about Livestock Advisor Essentials northern program in 2025 by registering your interest here.