Swine vet shares lessons from home around the world

CARTHAGE, Ill. — The Allen D. Leman Science in Practice Award isn’t the first swine-related award that Dr. Clayton Johnson has received.

Johnson doesn’t just enjoy working in swine health, he also enjoys the end result of healthy pigs and lots of them — plentiful supplies of pork.

“One of our other veterinarians, Dr. Aaron Lower, and I entered a University of Illinois barbecue competition last year, back when we had football. There was a tailgating competition. We think our barbecue tastes great, but we’ve never had anybody else give us feedback on it so we thought that was pretty cool to win the whole thing,” Johnson said.

The prestigious Leman honor was awarded to Johnson at the 2020 Allen D. Leman Swine Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, the conference being held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The award was created in memory of Dr. Allen D. Leman, a University of Minnesota veterinarian, and honors those who have made advances in swine health.

“I am very honored to receive it and certainly very happy,” said Johnson of the Leman award.

Johnson has been with Carthage Veterinary Services as a partner and veterinarian since 2016. Prior to that, he was with The Maschhoffs, based in Carlyle.

At Carthage, Johnson describes himself as a “jack of all trades.”

“I have a day job as a veterinarian. I am a veterinarian for many different farmers and when they have animal health challenges, I’m the one that they call,” he said.

His other position within the Carthage System as Director of Health is to oversee the animal health efforts of the system’s international presence. The Carthage System has a presence around the globe, including in Mexico, China and Southeast Asia and Europe.

“Sometimes I’m the vet that actually goes and does that work. Other times, I’m more the coordinator who makes sure we have vets on our team who are servicing those international accounts,” Johnson said.

Johnson followed in his father’s footsteps to becoming a veterinarian. He grew up in Griggsville, where his parents still live. His father, Dr. William Johnson, is a mixed animal veterinarian with the Griggsville-Pittsfield Veterinary Clinic.

“I saw my dad’s interactions with farmers as kind of a way to live vicariously the life of a farmer, but not necessarily have to be born into a family that owns 1,000 acres and 500 sows and all that sort of stuff because that wasn’t going to be my pathway. I could vicariously live that lifestyle by trying to help farmers and give them advice,” he said.

He did his undergraduate work at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, and attended the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. He graduated from there in 2008.

Johnson said he looked at other species during vet school, but never strayed far from pigs.

“I went into swine immediately. I knew that was what I wanted to do. I’d grown up in the industry and checked out other species, but I didn’t find any of them that I liked as much as swine, so I knew that was for me,” he said.

After working for The Maschhoffs as a staff veterinarian for eight years, Johnson had the opportunity to move closer to home and work for Carthage Veterinary Services. Johnson and his wife, Ali, have two children.

Johnson sees his work as a veterinarian as not only helping animals, but helping the people connected to those animals.

“Whether I’m working with another veterinarian on our team or with farm staff, if I can help them solve a problem and help them have some sort of a sense of hope that we can improve this health challenge, there’s no better part of my day than that,” he said.

But his patients are never far from his thoughts. The care that he provides for the animals contributes to their welfare and that is a point he tries to make whenever the opportunity arises.

“If I am sitting next to someone on an airplane and we get to the point of what do I do and I tell them I’m a pig veterinarian and they look at me like I’ve got eight eyeballs, that’s the message I try to get across to them. At the end of the day, what I do as a veterinarian is the same as any veterinarian — try and help solve health problems and by solving those health problems, yes, I am helping the bottom line of the producer. I am also helping the pig. I always look at the pigs as my clients. If I make the pig better, I’m going to have a healthy pig and a happy producer. I think it’s easy for consumers to not see that or not connect those dots,” he said.