Since opening her own Perthshire equestrian veterinary practice in January, Camilla Church has been busy and is ready to take on another vet.
Having been interested in horses since she was young, Camilla decided to launch her own equine veterinary practice in January.
A qualified veterinary surgeon, Camilla has worked in Perthshire – focusing mainly on equine care – since graduating from Glasgow Vet School in 2015.
Since launching Perth Equine Vets, Camilla and veterinary nurse Lauren Blyth have been in high demand.
The new addition to the team is Anna Hammond, who has 27 years of experience as an equine vet.
Perth Equine Vets grows
Camilla says: “I’ve been investing to make sure that we keep growing and providing an excellent service.
“I’ve been trying to grow the business quickly and take on people before we really need them, so it’s a proactive growth and not reactive.
“We’re all about providing great services and if we’re getting so busy on the vet side we can’t do customer service that’s not right.”
The practice currently covers an area 45 minutes from Perth. With a larger team, Camilla hopes to reach even further.
Having an additional vet means she only needs to be on-call every other weekend from now on.
In the long term, Camilla would like to take on more vets so they can run an efficient emergency service.
She says: “How the practice came about is I realised horse owners like to deal with people who specialise with horses.
“If they call out of hours, they might get a vet that does cats or dogs, which in a high stress situation isn’t really ideal.
“I’m just trying to get across that being a horse owner myself. We’re all about forward thinking.”
Passion for education
Camilla runs an education series on Perth Equine Vets’ Facebook page and lectures with North Highland College UHI.
By teaching horse owners more about the animals, the vet practice hopes to keep the horses as healthy as possible.
Many horses are overweight, which can cause illness when the owner is unaware says Camilla.
She has therefore invested in equipment to keep Perthshire’s horses in good shape.
She says: “We have portable weight scales that will be going out to competitions and also client addresses.
“By weighing the horses we’re hoping we can educate the clients to know how to treat their horse.
“I know of no vet practise that has their own weighing scales, so we’re quite excited to be the front runner for that.
“Working on my own business has been the best feeling in the world.
“If we want a piece of kit or to do something different we can do it and it’s so liberating.”