Health & Animal Care Associate (Carlyle, IL)

Health & Animal Care Associate (Carlyle, IL) The Health and Animal Care Associate is responsible for implementation of the animal care training and auditing programs and provides support for the Herd Veterinarian. This role works collaboratively with operations and support departments to ensure consistent implementation of standards that safeguard the health and well‑being of our animals. This position conducts investigations and supports the development of programs to enhance health and care practices. Duties & Functions Perform proactive, acute, and endemic disease health visits with a focus on clinical data collection, diagnostic sample collection and submission, and accurate reporting to the Herd Veterinarian to support intervention strategy decision making. Develop and execute regional audit plans for biosecurity, animal care and handling, food safety, truck wash and transport audits. Support system animal care, health, biosecurity, and safety programs. Analyze and effectively communicate audit results to determine compliance deficiencies, potential root cause and propose intervention countermeasures to improve performance through follow‑up coaching and training. Develop and conduct training to improve health, biosecurity, safety, and animal care outcomes. Ensure compliance with industry animal care and food safety programs (PQA, TQA) using a variety of training methods including large group, individual, webinar, and online training. Provide support for maintaining Breed‑to‑wean, wean‑to‑market, transport, and truck wash standard operating procedures. Establish foundational knowledge of BTW, WTM, and Transport Operations to ensure alignment with operational needs and processes. Lead animal care investigations ensuring thorough documentation of incident details, identification of contributing factors or root cause, and documentation of corrective action. Provide coaching and recommendations to production leadership to ensure animal care incidents receive corrective and disciplinary action that is appropriate and consistent with animal care policies. Minimum Qualifications Education: Associate’s Degree required; Bachelor’s Degree preferred. Animal Science, Agriculture Business, Veterinary Technician, or related field. Experience: 3 years in livestock production or animal health; 3 additional years may be substituted for the Bachelors degree. Knowledge, Skills & Abilities: Necropsy skills including gross lesion identification and diagnostic sample submission and collection. General biosecurity and disease prevention techniques and technologies. Animal science and production practices applied in modern swine production systems. Animal well‑being principles including PQA and TQA programs. Customer expectations concerning animal well‑being and food safety. Quality management systems, process verification. Skilled In: Ability to communicate findings clearly verbally and in writing to Herd Veterinarian. Computer software skills including internet and MS Office suite, Adobe PDF editor, Canva. Working independently and in a team environment. Must be a self‑starter. Observation techniques, "root cause" analysis, and tactical problem solving. Establishing effective partnerships with stakeholders. Ability To: Plan effectively and meet personal due dates – Results Oriented. Maintain daily discipline and punctuality. Maintain high professional standards – Adherence to a high quality of work. Provide timely and reliable support to disease challenges. Handle physical demands of moving, lifting and securing animals. On‑call responsibilities to respond to reported hotline incidents or acute health challenges. Work some weekends or holidays. Compensation Targeted pay range of $55,943 - $64,335 USD annually, depending on experience and qualifications. Benefits The Maschhoffs offers full‑time regular employees a comprehensive benefits package including: Your choice between a Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan and a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) plan. Two options for dental coverage, both of which cover three main types of expenses and cover preventative care at 100%. Group rate vision benefits. Complimentary Basic Life Insurance as well as voluntary employee, spouse, and child life insurance policies. Short Term and Long Term Disability coverage, at no cost to the employee. A traditional pre‑tax 401(k) plan as well as a Roth 40(k) plan. The Company matches the first 4% of employee contributions, which is immediately vested. A generous paid time off program, including a life event day and volunteer day each year for full‑time employees. Seniority level Mid‑Senior level Employment type Full‑time Job function Other Industry Food and Beverage Manufacturing #J-18808-Ljbffr The Maschhoffs