By Linda Geist

Country veterinarian Imogene Hemeyer Latimer wasn't born in a barn. However, it is where you will find her during spring calving and weaning season.

Latimer serves cattle producers in northeastern Missouri. She joined the General Veterinary Clinic in Monroe City in 1987 after graduating from the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine.

MU Extension livestock specialist Daniel Mallory says Latimer's commitment to the beef industry shows. "She is a progressive veterinarian," Mallory says. She uses ultrasound pregnancy diagnosis in cattle and works with area producers enrolled in MU Extension's Show-Me-Select Replacement Heifer Program. She stays current with technology through MU Extension and a multistate group, Applied Reproductive Strategies in Beef Cattle.

Most days, Latimer works from her rural Shelbyville home or her truck. Producers have her private phone number plugged into their cellphones. She is a ring away from a bawling calf or birthing cow, day or night.

She combines old-fashioned manners with new technology as she travels the countryside.

Advances in beef production
Veterinary medicine has changed in the 30 years since she started. Along with her veterinary practice, Latimer and her husband and son raise 250 crossbred cattle at their farm.

Programs such as MU's Show-Me-Select Heifer Replacement Program improved calving ease. The program cut in half the number of calves that need assistance during labor and birth. MU Extension also offers training sessions for producers to learn to pull their own calves when necessary.

The Latimers have found success with fixed-time artificial insemination (AI) followed by cleanup bulls. AI allows breeders to choose from the top sires in the breed and also to control windows for calving time better.

The Latimers were among the first participants in fixed-time AI in commercial beef herds in the state. Their demonstrator herd helped them share with other producers how to get more than 50% of their cows to conceive on the first day of the breeding season. This makes for a more uniform calf crop.

The program helps the Latimer family improve profits and conception rates. Good herd genetics means fewer calf deaths and better calving ease. Latimer sells open heifers to Show-Me-Select consignors and keeps some heifers back for her herd. This gives the consignor an opportunity to sell Tier 2 heifers.

Latimer says she was skeptical about the program at first. She used AI on only part of her herd. "I wasn't going to trust that whole herd to AI and spend that kind of money," the veterinarian from the Show-Me State says. The results proved to her the program's value, and she agreed for her herd to be used as a demonstrator, or teaching, herd to show that university research worked on real farms.

Latimer works with Mallory in the MU Extension Center in Ralls County. He is a regional Show-Me-Select program coordinator as well as a livestock specialist. She also works with Dave Patterson, who heads the program. He was one of her professors at MU.

Adopting new technologies
The Latimers recently installed cameras in their barns so they can check cows ready to calve. Technology helps aging farmers and those who want to avoid trips to the barn on cold nights, she says. They watch cows on a monitor from the comfort of their living room instead going out to the barn.

Latimer owns an ultrasound machine to do early cow pregnancy checks. She works with Scott Poock at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine to improve her "sexing" skills. The ultrasound machine gives producers the ability to verify pregnancy, estimate due date and find out the calf's sex.

She was a doubting Thomas when Poock explained the ultrasound technology. "At first, I thought it was a joke," she says. "But then I realized he was serious."

It's something she never imagined 30 years ago when she joined the clinic.

For this country veterinarian, learning never ends.

Geist is a senior information specialist for the University of Missouri, Columbia.