The main functions of The Department of Production Animal Medicine https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/faculty-of-veterinary-medicine/faculty/department-of-production-animal-medicine, veterinary students’ education and research on livestock, take place both in Mäntsälä on Saari Unit and in Helsinki on Viikki Campus. Production Animal Hospital which is a part of the University Veterinary Teaching hospital, is located on Saari Unit. The Saari Unit provides high-quality veterinary medical services and clinical facilities for production animals, including clinical chemistry, bacteriology and reproduction laboratory analyses. These facilities together with department’s laboratory in Viikki Campus and unit’s researchers’ wide experience on field trials and ability to utilize national population level health recording systems enable unique versatile research activities together with national and international academic and industry collaborators.
Investigators at the Department of Prod Anim Med mostly conduct applied, clinical research focusing on health, reproduction and welfare of domestic farm animals. The department accommodates several research groups or networks: Ruminant Health research group https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/ruminant-health,The Animal Reproduction Science Group https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/animal-reproduction-science, The Animal Welfare Research Center https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/research-centre-for-animal-welfare, The Finnish Centre for Animal Welfare EHK, https://elaintenhyvinvointikeskus.edublogs.org/fcaw-in-english/ and Pig research group https://www.facebook.com/pigresearch/. The research activities also target one health perspectives such as infectious diseases and use of antimicrobials in production animals. The department members also participate in HOH Helsinki One Health (https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/one-health) network activities. Department’s publications can be found from the University’s research portal https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/organisations/production-animal-medicine/publications/