By JP Phillips
Contributing Writer

All Creatures Great and Small is currently one of PBS’s most popular TV shows.  It is based on the books written by James Herriot about his experiences as a traveling country vet in England’s Yorkshire Dales during the 1930s and 1940s.  The original BBC series was faithful to the books, and aired during the late 1970s through 1990. The sixth season of the current series, which takes some liberties with the books, is set to air in January of 2026 on PBS.

In many ways, the rolling hills and farms in our area are similar to the places described in Herriot’s stories.  According to the 2022 Chester County Census of Agriculture, livestock, poultry and related products are a $127.9 million business, with the county ranking 15th in the state.  Who here provides care to our farm animals and, in turn, is an important partner in keeping our meat, milk and related products safe for consumption?

Meet Chester County’s own “James Herriot,”  Dr. Mary Jane (MJ) Drake. She is an assistant professor of clinical food animal field service at the University of Pennsylvania New Bolton Center in East Marlborough Township. She is one of 12 traveling Penn Vets in New Bolton’s Field Service group. Her job is two-fold: calling on scheduled and emergency farm appointments throughout Chester County and vicinity, and giving fourth-year students of The School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania hands-on experience.

Originally from the Newark, Del. area, she and her husband recently purchased a home in Kennett Square.  She studied biochemistry at the University of Virginia before earning a Ph.D at Penn. 

“I wanted to study viruses and pathogens and understand how they hijacked cells to replicate, and how they could cause profound disease,” Drake said.  She thought that she would eventually work with pharmaceuticals.  “And then when I was in grad school, working in a lab, I realized I wanted to be outside and do something on a day-to-day basis that had a bigger direct impact.”

While she found the research to be very interesting, progress was slow.  “I want to be able to do something where I can really see the benefit of on a day-to-day basis,” she said.

Drake explored careers while in graduate school.  She shadowed a friend who was a large animal vet doing cattle export work.  She was ensuring that animals leaving the United States weren’t taking any infectious diseases—perhaps common here but foreign in other countries-- with them where they could devastate a healthy herd.  

“It triggered something in me—this is the application I was looking for,” she said.  

The work still dealt with infectious diseases, but in a real-world way.  It checked all the boxes for her, and she was sold on becoming a food animal vet.  

“That intersection of animal health and human health, right? Because we can share diseases with animals and they can share them with us, and the environment as well,” Drake explained.  “And so I finished up my Ph.D and I was able to continue to go to Penn for vet school.”  

Drake graduated in 2020 with a Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris degree, or “VMD.”

You can find Drake most days driving through the countryside in a fully equipped Penn Vet truck that has just about everything she would need to diagnose and treat cows, goats, sheep, pigs—every farm animal except horses, which are serviced by the traveling equine vets.  In addition to medicines, vaccines, antiseptics, surgical material and various instruments, she usually travels with two or three students as part of their schooling.  She discusses the upcoming call while she drives and what they are likely to find, and sprinkles them with questions to prepare them for the visit.

Drake sees farms weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or on an as-needed basis.  Farmers usually separate the animals that need examining to one area before she arrives. She said that dairy farms are seen most frequently because besides needing normal care, cows must give birth to produce milk.  

“We're able to use our ultrasound (if needed) to actually look at her uterus and tell if she’s pregnant or not,” Drake said.  “Cows are typically on a schedule—they usually have a calf every year.  We’ll help diagnose pregnancy and identify cows that aren't pregnant, so that they can be monitored and hopefully bred again.”  

Artificial insemination is the most popular way to impregnate cows, Drake explained, and many farmers handle this themselves or use companies that travel from farm to farm providing this service.  

She explained, “We have gone away from using a live bull in dairy just because the cows have to be handled quite a bit—they come in to get milked twice a day, and that sort of thing. Having a potentially aggressive animal within that group is a big safety concern.” 

Most baby animals Drake deals with are born in the spring, and it’s one of her favorite parts of her job.  

“The lambing and kidding season is usually January to March or April. And then same thing with beef cattle,” she said.  “I think one of my favorite lessons in vet school is that everything wants to be born in the spring.  It’s the season of new life, but it’s also when it’s starting to rain.  It's getting warmer. The grass is growing. There are lots of nutrients available in the environment to feed both the mom and the baby. And so a lot of species have evolved to cycling or wanting to get pregnant during the time of year that would lead to them having a baby in the spring. Sheep and goats--their gestation lengths are about five months and so they get bred in the fall. Horses have an 11-month gestation, so they start cycling in the springtime to have a baby almost a year later. Cows have a nine-month gestation.”

Drake said that farmers and herd managers are very knowledgeable about their animals, and do much of the care themselves.  Time during a call is frequently spent in conversation discussing animal husbandry, diseases, symptoms, and answering the farmer’s questions.  She says that it’s important for the farmers to learn how to recognize symptoms and know whether it is something they can handle or when a vet should be called.  While routine births are usually handled by the farmers, vets get called when the mom or baby is in distress.  

“Some of the most stressful but rewarding calls I have are calvings,” Drake said. “When a cow's in labor and something is not going right-- whether the calf is breached, or have their head back—I use my OBGYN skills to get the baby in the right position and deliver it.  Being able to see a live calf, and mom feeling so much better now that she's not in labor anymore, and seeing her lick that calf—I think those are some of the most rewarding calls. I had a calving this winter. I think it was zero degrees outside. Luckily, when it’s in the barn and you're working inside the cow, the cow’s warm, so you're getting some heat from her. But as soon as everything’s done--the calf’s out, the mom's okay— [you notice that] everything's frozen. And then you realize how cold it is.  But I think a lot of times you're working in the heat of the moment, the adrenaline pumping, and you forget.”

Kennett Square Life accompanied Dr. Drake and two fourth-year graduate students, Hannah Anderson and Elise Nanda, for a morning on a beautiful September day.  The first stop was the Lytle Farm in West Grove, where farmer David Lytle planned to take three Hampshire sheep to competitions, including The Big E--a multi-state fair held in Springfield, MA. Because the animals were crossing state lines, they needed examinations and certificates to certify that they are healthy.   

The next call was to see why a couple of Jacqueline Colyer’s Shropshire Dorset sheep were limping.  It turned out that foot abscesses were the problem, and were lanced by Drake and the students.  Colyer grows all the hay she needs for their feed and comfort on her Oxford Farm.  She also has them sheered once per year and sells the yarn and craft kits.

Drake admitted that before going to vet school, she never read any of the James Herriot books.  “I had asked my boss at my first job, ‘Am I [even] allowed to be a large animal vet?’  And so, the next day, on my desk was his original copy from when he was a kid,” she said. 

Drake continued, “The new version of the TV show came out the first year I was practicing, when I was an intern.  It was interesting to watch and be able to feel a connection with the James Herriot character and the vets in that show.”  

She noted some the similarities and the differences between the cases that she encountered and the ones that Herriot encountered.  

“There are certain aspects of veterinary medicine that maybe haven't changed,” she explained. “If a cow is down with milk fever, we still give them calcium, right?  But at the other end, a lot has changed. We have a lot more advanced imaging. I have an ultrasound on my truck at all times, and we have mobile X-ray equipment-- we’re able to do a lot more.” 

Drake continued, “Pharmacology research has provided us with more information about the best choices for how we treat our patients. But I think in watching All Creatures Great and Small, on an emotional level, I could understand some of the challenges he was facing day to day--whether it was a tough client or a sick animal, and if he wasn’t able to help, or the victories that you feel…that was fun to be able to actually really understand what that character was going through.”

For Dr. Drake, every call is a new challenge and a new adventure—and that’s just the way she likes it.