Dr. Mary McDonald takes her message and her care for large animals worldwide.
Written by Dan Smith / Photo By Dan Smith / Illustration By Patrick Harrington
Large animal veterinarian Mary McDonald has spent a goodly portion of her adulthood living or working in countries other than her own. But, she said, the countries were “mostly places where people don’t want to go.”
She has goat projects in Sudan, “but I haven’t been because of civil war,” she said. “I train people to raise funds for goats there and in Bolivia, Uganda, and Kenya, among others, classified as Majority World countries.”
The 66-year-old native of Powhatan doesn’t land in these countries casually. Her frequent, yearslong visits have both practical and spiritual goals. They are part of the Christian Veterinary Missions (CVM) wherein she not only treats animals but also teaches their owners how to care for them, since they are often vital to the overall success of the villages she visits.
She not only does missionary work, but she is a deacon, speaker, author, mentor, and a guest lecturer at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. She works with the Society for Anglican Missionaries and runs her own business: Spend Yourselves, where she teaches a course called F.A.R.M. (Farm Animal Refresher for Missions).
FARM, she said, means, “Helping prepare people who are interested in helping others in the developing majority world by teaching basic farm animal handling, nutrition, health care, vaccination, de-worming, and foot trimming, as well as cross-cultural and evangelism training.” She raises money for goat revolving loans in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan and has done many revolving goat loans and animal health trainings throughout Uganda.
She graduated from Virginia Tech in 1982, where she enrolled at 39, in Animal Science, and upon graduation moved to Texas to manage a ranch. She lived a year in Kenya where she helped with orphans, elephants, and rhino babies. When they returned from Kenya, they started a family, having a son and daughter.
Her first effort overseas came in Bolivia, where she trained indigenous groups in the countryside to be efficient in large animal care. The natives there, she said, are “trapped in a cycle of poverty. The increased livestock production can help alleviate it.” The animals are vital to their economy—especially goats, which have twins frequently, increasing their value. Protein in the native diets is crucial. Chickens and eggs, as well as other large farm animals, “make a significant difference in their diets.”
She worked with her husband and two children in Bolivia before returning to Roanoke and has been an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech and guest lecturer at the vet school. She has spoken to veterinary groups around the world and mentored vet students in Blacksburg, taking them to Uganda.
She is an author of two books, the best-selling Starting and Running Your Own Horse Business, and The Magnet: A Large Animal Veterinarian’s Journey, a memoir. She is working on a third book and has one or two more in mind.
McDonald lives with her husband Jack in Catawba, where they have an international student ministry and do conservation work in the valley and on their historic farm. “Jack often tells me he’s not a farmhand,” she laughed, “but he helps a great deal with the livestock.” McDonald and her husband founded Valley Keepers several years ago “in order to help other property owners along Catawba Creek’s conservation efforts and encourages more Conservation Easements.” So, her influence is not just international, it is also local.
McDonald points out that being a veterinarian can be enormously stressful. “Veterinarians have a suicide rate that is four times the national average,” she said. Women vets are higher than the rate for men, according to NPR. She believes that having core spiritual belief results in “fewer suicides in our ranks.” Still, the profession is plagued, she insisted, with “critical social media, debt, litigiousness” and abuse of drugs that help “relieve pain and suffering.”
Faith and a belief that what she is doing professionally, she said, relieves many of those pressures. It also has considerable meaning among the poor of the world.
The story above first appeared in our May/June 2026 issue.
