A Seymour-based veterinarian and former science teacher will begin work next week as the University of Wisconsin-Extension agriculture agent for Oconto County. Sarah Mills-Lloyd, a practicing veterinarian for the past eight years, starts Oct. 15; her specialty will be dairy and livestock.
Her experience in large-animal medicine and teaching will be helpful in her new role, she said.
“I love to get to know people, and I think it all works together for what I’ll be doing,” she said.
An agriculture agent provides programming and resources for ag producers and the community at large. The position is financially supported by a partnership between the county and the state.
Mills-Lloyd grew up in Sheldon, in western Wisconsin, where her family ran a lumber yard and True Value. She earned majors in life science teaching and biology from Moorhead State University, Minnesota. After teaching high school science for a year in central Minnesota, she enrolled at vet school to fulfill a dream she had since childhood.
“It was always a love of mine,” she said.
Her mom kept a memento from second grade with the message: “When I grow up I want to be a veterinarian and help sick puppies and kittens and live in the country.”
“I’ve pretty much fulfilled all that,” Mills-Lloyd said.
Mills-Lloyd graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in 2005 and was hired at Pulaski Vet Clinic.
Besides experience with farm animals, she worked with specialty species such as llamas and alpacas and other hoofed animals at the NEW Zoo in Suamico.
On mission veterinary trips to Nicaragua and in 2012, to India, she worked with other species, including water buffalo for the first time.
“It’s not a creature I want to personally own, but it’s a sustenance of life for them,” she said.
For the past seven years, she worked as a veterinarian at Valley Veterinary Clinic in Seymour, which is about 95 percent devoted to dairy animal practice.
She said helping to sustain and grow the dairy industry in Oconto County will be one of her goals. Promoting agriculture is another.
“In my position, that will be a primary emphasis—getting people to know where their products come from,” she said.
She looks forward to being involved in Breakfast on the Farm and the Oconto County Fair.
“I will be a visible person out there. My door’s always open to any questions,” she said.
Mills-Lloyd lives in Pulaski with her husband, Jared. She owns a horse and enjoys trail and pleasure riding.
The ag agent position has been vacant since Abby Huibregtse left Feb. 20 to take a position at Hoard’s Dairyman and to get married. Interviews for the position were completed in July, and Mills-Lloyd accepted the position in August but remained at the clinic to fulfill her contract obligations.
She was one of two candidates interviewed by the Extension Education Committee of the County Board, and committee chairman Guy Gooding said she will be a good fit for the county.
“She’s local … and has good animal experience, and that’s what we need in an ag agent,” he said.
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