So behind

This week was crazy busy and I just haven't had the energy to write much down.

We visited a bull at a farm that works with "organic" principles; for example, they feed organic food to the entire herd and will not treat any of the animals going to market with antibiotics.  However, the bull that had a case of pinkeye was able to be treated with antibiotics injected into the scelera of the eye.  Do to the location of the bull, we had to bring the chute to it for restrain.  I am amazed every time one of the doctors here maneuvers their truck into each of the farms.  This time we had the chute attached to the back of the truck going through rained out fields.  It was a MUD pit.

I snared my first hog last Friday to treat erysipelas in a 4-H hog.  The hog presented with large red welts on his back along with a nasty fever.  The biggest worry for treating this guy was the fact that the fair is coming up and that any treatments we give had to be out of his system by fair.  Luckily, the treatment plan that was chosen gave him a few extra weeks between treatment and the fair.

Natalie and I tag teamed a visit to an alpaca farm and learned more information about alpacas then I will ever need to know.  The owners were amazing at answering all of our ignorant questions including: what is a male alpaca called? (male)  What is cushing? (showing mating behavior) What's the difference between a llama and an alpaca (llamas are bigger and have banana shaped ears).  We helped geld four the the males and restrained a few females to check for pregnancy by ultrasound.

Today, I was volunteered to help float teeth on two horses.  By help float teeth, I held the head of two horses for about an hour each while Dr. Amity floated their teeth.  Floating teeth is the only way to maintain good dental health in horses due to their ever growing hypsodont teeth.  Basically, we file away the sharp points that are produced by the grinding motion of eating grass.

Also one of the highlights of this past week included seeing a Scottish Highland cow in real life because they are the cutest damn cows I have ever seen (even though this one had pinkeye and was feisty as hell.)

Rolled & Toggled

So far every farm call I go on becomes a marathon.  Today's started out as a sick cow visit with Dr. Miranda.  Her owner thought she was mildly ketotic after having milk fever after calving.  When we got there it was she definitely looked sick and there was definitely some metritis going on.  As we did our exam, Miranda hear the "ping" on the left flank of a displaced abdomen and let me try to find it myself. AND I DID IT!!! (there have been so many moments so far in the first two days where I have actually been able to apply what I have learned in class and finally understand the noises that professors make)  So after hearing the ping, the options to treat her would be to either 1-open her up and perform surgery, omentopexy or abomasopexy, or 2-roll & toggle.  Due to logistics the owner elected to try and roll & toggle.  This procedure involves rolling the cow onto her back and allowing the abomasum (full of air) to rise up to the abdominal wall back to where it should be.  After the abomasum has returned to its proper location, the veterinarian inserts toggles that will "keep" it in place and it hopefully wont flip again.  Easier said then done since you are turning a fully grown holstein on her back for the entire procedure.  After watching it being done, I am amazed at how strong the farmers and their families are along with learning different methods of restraining the animal that can make it go a whole lot smoother.  For examping casting the cow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWPn0QuJ1ok#t=16s) to have them lay down on the correct side.  It uses pressure points to make the animal want to lay down.
Once she got up from the procedure, she no longer had pings on the left side and hopefully it will heal with time.  We also gave her fluids to help increase her appetite, to reduce the chance of her flipping again.

Sorry no photos :-( I really need to get in the habit of taking out my phone.

Side Note: I placed my first Endotracheal tube in a dog being neutered!! :-)

First Day at East Holmes

I have survived my first day at a mobile clinic.  I am completely tired (mind and body) but I loved every minute of it.  I saw a lot of first today: first herd check, first jerry-rigged cow restraint, sadly my first horse euthanasia and my first visit to a commercial dog breeder.

To bring you back a day... Natalie and I left Columbus around 1pm and began the drive to Holmes County. My phone decided to spaz out so we were down one cell phone and left with a phone that went from roaming to not a single bar.  So of course we made a couple wrong turns.  Traveled through some original towns of Ohio and slowly made our way through back country roads to find US-62.  We also found Ohio's Longest Covered Bridge.  Soon after we noticed an increase in horse manure on the side of the road and we were finally in Amish Country and close to our final destination.  Upon arriving and unpacking, we realized that we passed civilization and the source of food about 20 minutes ago on the road; hopped back into the car and headed to Wally World.  We spent the night at the "Intern" house next to the clinic with Amanda, one of the employees at the clinic.

This morning started at 7:45 with a speed tour and introduction at the clinic before Natalie and I split up to go with different vets on farm calls.  It was one blur of a farm call after another.  We saw a couple cows with teat injuries, a cow with a fever of unknown origin along with checking cows for pregnancy.  One of the interesting checks was at an organic dairy farm.  The farmer had a couple of cows with hoof problems that couldn't be treated with conventional antibiotics so a different treatment plan had to be created. Also at this farm there wasn't a tilt table or squeeze shoot.  We worked with the cow in a head lock and the foot elevated by a rope looped over a rafter and around a pole (I feel  like physics was involved in how I could hold up this animals foot, but I have blocked the physics out of my mind). During this visit, Dr. Aaron used an ultrasound to help determine if the cow was pregnant and I was able to see the screen.  I feel like I kinda new what I was looking out (OSU radiology professors would be proud) but I wasn't sure.  He pointed me to look at the drostproject.org to help me understand what I was seeing and it was amazing.

I forgot to take my phone out to take pictures, but I will try again tomorrow, but now it's 8:55pm and storming outside and I will try to brave the 20 feet from work to home.