Trust me, I'm (going to be) a Vet

Yes thats right boys and girls, i have a week out at the University farms doing "intense" and "advanced" animal procedures. When i say "advanced" i reall do mean advanced. I was to tired to write about what we did yesterday, which means i have two lots of stories to talk about. Lests start off with Monday shall we? BE WARNED: Some of these procedures may upset people, so if you're not into blood/guts/mulesing(PETA will beat me with a stick)/cruel practices/etc. then i suggest strongly you leave

Group F (thats the group i'm in) starts first on porcine and poultry. The pig prac started off with the usual 'piglet marking' which involves teeth clipping to prevent the piglets mutilating each other, tail clipping for the same reasons, ear notching for identification, and an iron injection because pigs milk is low in iron (which predisposes the animal to anaemia). I took blood for the first time on ANY animal on the weaners and suprisingly, theyre very co-operative. I couldnt help but to think of how the nurse takes my blood for tests and what she would do if she didnt over/under shot my vein. We did an ultrasound of a pregnant sow and it is one of the most intimate and special moments in life. You look at the small screen in front of you and awe over the miracle of life/ves. In some of the sows that were longer in gestation you can see the spine and the outline of a skull in the uterus (you can tell i havent done reproduction yet). The demonstrator asked us to move a sow to a different shed and can you beleive it, it took about 8 vet students, two pig boards and a bucket to achieve this? I guess we were lucky in a way that the sow was a maiden (i.e. this is her first pregnancy and we move pregnant sows into a different shed they were mated in) and we were the first to give assist in her walking to a comfy place for her to pride and joys to grow.

Poultry was interesting actually. Alot more hands on and gruesome as well. We identified birds with Coccidiosis in freshly euthanased birds-by jove were they warm. Those with the colostridial disease exhibited small red dots or lesisions in their caecum (i think). We then went on to examine incubated eggs that have not hatched for whatever reason. We found alot of the eggs had developed into a distinguishable chick but were not fully developed i.e. its gut content/yolk is external to the body. The demonstrator had told us about "bombs" which are eggs that have been infested with a bacterial infection causing the embryo to never grow but a medium for the bacteria to thrive in. When these were cracked open, a black runny consistency was observed. Before you visually see the black liquid, your olfactory senses identify the egg in your hands is a bomb and trust me, the olfactory neurons in my sinuses (ha ha ! respiratory anatomy!) cringed at the pungent/disgusting/make-you-vomit-like smell.
The rest of poultry events are rather R18+ so i'll euphemise them as much as i can. We learnt about the various methods of vaccinating the animal and tried it. The needles are short and the methods of vaccination are so quick you dont even notice that it even occured. One method of vaccination my partner and i found cute was the eye drop one. The chook blinks really quickly and the liquid just seeps in and appears into the mouth (for those who are non-meds, the eyes, nose and ears open up into your mouth (eventually)). Loob was drawn out of the jugular and wing vein (they have beautiful and juciy veins which make them so easy to draw from!) and finally the green dream.

Today, group F ventured to the Horse unit where we spend the day standing around, then having morning tea, stand around some more, lunch, stand around a bit more then go home. Seriously, this is what we did today. We knew this last semester from our Friday pracs, where we thought the horse pracs were very laid back. I got stepped on by a horse and by jove, they do not move their hoof once its planted firmly on the ground. The stupid steel caps that OH&S tells us to wear DO NOT cover the side of the centre of the foot, which could very easily be smashed to bits, but the toes only. I was fortunate enough to not have ANY bruising on the side and middle of my right and left foot respectively, let alone any breakage. The usual was carried out: catch a horse, restrain it, headstall on, walk and make it trot. A new skill we learnt today was how to lead a horse into a float and leading the horse around crushes and tight spaces. After that we revisited bandaging and picking up feet, we watched the demonstrator give Squirt and Tommy an oral Bute-paste (the horse version of panadol). Tommorow involves assessing what we did today, which calls for a good nights rest :)