Helping Them Speak

swans with lead poisoning and early rising bats

2012-01-09T14:25:00.001-08:00

This unusually warm winter affects not only humans, but wildlife too. Because more lakes and ponds are remaining open, the swans haven't all migrated yet, choosing to stay if the water isn't frozen. This means the lead poisoned swans are more likely to be noticed and brought to us. Although we currently only have one lead poisoned patient in right now, I'm expecting more will soon join it...

Every winter we get in many bats, like the big brown bat pictured above. They usually are hibernating in a building and wake up early d/t warm house temperatures or are woken up when people find them. It takes a LOT of energy to come out of hibernation, so these guys usually come to us very thin. We fatten them up, and then release them into a gated cave that is known to have a large hibernaculum of big brown bats; we hope they fly into the cave, join the others and re-enter sleep until spring...

Swans, a sandhill crane, a tiger salamander, pelicans

2011-12-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

Above is a trumpeter swan under anesthesia. He was shot and part of his wing (ulna) was fractured. Luckily the bone healed with just a wing wrap and he was released into an a fenced in lake so he could strengthen his wing (we don't have flight cages big enough for swans at the center:) Below is him walking down to the lake at release!
Below is a recently admited tiger salamander. It was found late in the fall (should have been in hibernation!). This salamander has a broken arm, a broken leg and metabolic bone disease (calcium deficiency). The injuries are pretty severe--we're supplementing the diet and keeping it on cage rest--there's not much else to do. Splinting the bones would likely be more stressful/painful than just leaving them at this point. We'll see how it does over the winter! (at the bottom of a post is a video of the salamander).
At this time of year we get in a lot of birds with old injuries that were unable to migrate. Below are 2 pelicans that came in last week. Their flock migrated south and they were left on the lake, unable to fly. Volunteers caught them and brought them in. Unfortunately one had an amputated wing tip and the other had a dislocated wrist. Both injuries are irreparable and render these birds unreleasable. It's a sad time of year when we have to humanely euthanize many animals.
Sometimes we are able to "place" unreleasable animals instead of euthanizing. It is rare situations that this is possible and it depends on many factors--we need a place that wants the animal (for education, exhibit or as a foster parent), the animal needs to be able to psychologically able to handle captivity and the injury needs to not cause chronic pain. The sandhill crane below was unable to migrate. He was living near a woman's house with a female and their chick (now a juvenile). The couple had been nesting here for several years now. The woman noticed the wing drooping and observed the bird couldn't fly, but he was too fast of a runner to catch. Soon the birds would need to migrate and I advised the woman to keep an eye on them and to feed them so they would get used to her--if they didn't fear her, she might have enough time to net him. Weeks past and the female and chick refused to migrate w/o the male. Everything was freezing and the family was starving. Long story short, she was able to trap the male in a garage. We went out and captured him. Luckily, a rehab center in Antigo, WI was able to take him to use him as a foster parent for sandhill chicks and one of our volunteers was able to drive him the 4 hours there. The xray below shows bullet and how the wing healed malaligned. He won't be in chronic pain, this rehab center has a large outdoor enclosure he can live in (not a little cage, no visitors to stress him out). So a good ending to this story:)

head trauma pigeon, spinal flying squirrel, stubborn gull

2011-08-31T06:21:00.000-07:00

You wanted cases, so you got 'em!
I wish I had more pics of the above bird. This pigeon came in right after a windy storm. He came in seizuring--I assumed the wind threw him against a building, causing head trauma. We quickly gave medication to to stop the seizures and placed an IV catheter to administer fluids that would draw fluid (and therefore pressure) off the brain. Rarely do we get a patient in so soon after a traumatic incident (so rarely does this treatment work) but in this case, the pigeon was stable by the evening and ready to be released the next day!! yay!!

The above video is a southern flying squirrel. The finders found it in their yard and don't know how it got hurt. You're right--looks like some sort of spinal trauma. and that's what the radiographs (below) revealed. The sharp angle in the spine is a dislocation of the vertebrae:( this patient had to be euthanized.

The video below is a juvenile ring billed gull. He came in when we had a vet student working with us. He had a fracture, which healed well. After that, he refused to fly. The student ran every test in the book, which all came back normal. The student left, so I repeated the tests, and still there were all normal. Turns out, this was just a stubborn gull, who refused to fly for us! He was perfectly healthy:) so we started "creancing" him (see video) where you essentially have him on a rope and get him to fly for exercise. After a few weeks of this, he was released just in time for migration:)

Whew!

2011-07-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy June-in fact this June was our second busiest month in history! Over 2000 animals have been admitted--Whew! Most babies of all sorts (proabably 1000+ babies in our nurseries right now!) above is a juvenile raccoon in a tree right after he was released:)
We also get a lot of turtles in this time of year. ~40 are in house right now for shell fractures. Turtles are trying to get to the perfect area to lay their eggs--this often entails crossing roads, and you know what happens from there. Although I really don't know how someone "didn't see" a 40 lb snapping turtle crossing the road; it's not like he darted out in front of you.

What do you want to hear about in the next post?

Springtime is here!

2011-05-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

We're up to our chins in baby animals! Baby songbirds, baby mallards, baby cottontails, baby squirrels, baby raccoons, baby geese baby everything!!
Above are some bunnies raised in our nurseries, ready for release. Bunnies are ready for release at 21 days old--they are only the size of a woman's fist! If you find bunnies in your yard in a nest, leave them there (you'll never see the mom so don't worry), leash you dog for 2 weeks and they'll be gone:)

Above is a baby goose. Contrary to almost all other babies, if you find a baby goose or mallard by itself, it's likely orphaned and you should bring it in to a wildlife rehabilitation center.

Great blue heron chicks

2011-05-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the busiest day yet this year. We admitted 104 animals--I was there until 11 pm (3 hours after my shift was supposed to end, making a 13 hour day:) but it was ended admitting these awesome birds (pictured).

Many great blue heron pairs lay their eggs in one area called a "rookery" and care for the chicks together. This past weekend, the huge storms destroyed a large rookery, killing many herons and scattering the chicks. Thus, we received 7 great blue heron chicks last night.

sora, baby cottontail, bats

2011-04-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

Babies are here!! The squirrel and rabbit nurseries are filling up as we speak!

This baby cottontail rabbit has a broken arm from a dog:( He's waking up from anesthesia in this picture. Many, many of our baby rabbits come in b/c dogs and cats got a hold of them. Even more reason to keep your cats indoors (all the time!) and keep an eye on your dog when it's outside.

And with most uninjured babies--when in doubt--put them back in the nest! The smell thing is a myth and 90% of the time, mom will keep on taking care of them (which is better than a rehab center's success rate with babies...)

I had one person refuse to put baby rabbits back in their nest b/c her dog was in the yard. I excitedly told her that rabbits grow up fast, and all she had to do was leash her dog for 10 days and the rabbits would be gone! Yay! Her reply, "He's never been on a leash. I tried taking him out front today and he just wouldn't go on the leash. He won't go [to the bathroom] on the leash and is in the backyard all day" Your dog doesn't know how to go to the bathroom on a leash? So I replied, "You know, I bet if you just take him on a long walk he'll go--that usually helps most dogs" to which she came up with a million excuses, all ended with "he doesn't know how to be on a leash". That's bullcrap. Given enough time, a dog will do his duties wherever he can outside. Do you think the dog is really thinking, "Dang, I'm leashed--I better hold it until i get in the backyard!" NO! he's probably saying, "Dang, my owner is lazy--I just didn't have to go during that 3 minute walk"

Just an FYI--the purpose of walking your dog isn't just to give them time to go to the bathroom or to give them exercise--it's also a bonding time--time for you to spend with your dog. Needed time together.

After a long conversation, I wasn't convincing enough. She brought the bunnies into us. They were so small, they didn't have a chance for survival in a rehabilitation center. You can guess what happened next *sigh* :( all b/c a lady didn't want to walk her dog.

On the brighter side, here is a Sora (a marsh bird) that came in with some head trauma. She's doing well and will hopefully be released soon!

and here is a picture of a big brown bat. b/c bats are awesome:) don't forget--they'll be helping the bug population in your yard down! Plant some trees to encourage them to roost!

Drug-resistant bacteria found in HALF of US meat

2011-04-18T10:56:00.001-07:00

Just had to post this--part of the problem is that we are so separated from the production of our food...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/15/health/main20054211.shtml

Jackalope!

2011-04-08T20:15:00.000-07:00

One, little, innocent rabbit admitted to the center (for brain disease...besides the point)....

but wait!!

AHHHHHHHH!!!!

HE'S A JACKALOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!

So not really, but look closely at the abnormal growths protruding from behind this rabbit's ears. These growths are benign, caused by a papilloma virus. Picture these continuing to grow, even bigger, and you have the source of the jackalope legends:)

lizard tail and first baby squirrel of the year!

2011-04-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

Finally got our first baby squirrel of the year on sunday! I don't mind that the babies are being admitted late this year--our interns don't start for another few months!

Remember the lizard from the last post? Well, he's very stressed out when he has to be handled (as are most of our patients--they're wild animals!) but the other day he was so stressed that he "dropped" his tail! Some lizard species have a self-defense mechanism. If a predator grabs their tail, they can literally detach it from their bodies! It will grow back, but won't look the same (most just soft tissue that grows--not bone)

A crow, an opossum and our first baby of the year!

2011-03-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day in several months that I actually felt adequately busy. Don't get me wrong--I have a lot to do even when it's cold out and we're only admitting a few animals a day. I have ~50 in patients, some with more complicated diseases; research papers to write; continuing education lectures for our volunteers and rehabilitators to put together; we're in the midst of writing and installing a completely new computer system, so working out those bugs takes time; writing intern/extern manuals for the students that come with us during the busy season, etc etc etc.

But today--just felt different.

I started off the day by doing surgery on a crow. This crow had been shot (with a BB gun--ugh!); one pellet broken his wing, which was wrapped up and healing nicely. The other pellet was lodged in his leg. We see this very, very often--animals with various projectiles lodged in them. Usually, the don't do any harm so we leave them in (b/c surgery is invasive and risky--not worth it if the pellet can stay in without harming the animal). The pellet in the crows leg wasn't bothering him on admit--he was using the leg normally, there was no swelling around the pellet, etc.

However, 11 days after he was admitted, the area around the pellet became very swollen, he became lame on that leg, and couldn't fully extend the joint near the pellet.

SO here is an example of one of the few times I remove pellets. Good thing I did too-the pellet was lodged INSIDE a tendon sheath--it would have only continued to cause harm. I'm hoping this guy doesn't have any arthritis or other chronic problems--only time will tell. Here is his xray.

I think rechecked ALL of my inpatients, including this tiny ornate tree lizard that came in a few days ago.

he hitched a ride in a backpack with some people who were vacationing in Arizona. Silly lizard. We're trying to find him a ride home as soon as possible! He looks tired and dehydrated in this picture b/c he's used to 90deg weather, and what did we have today? a blizzard! hahaha

Then I amputated the tip of a opossum tail. Virginia Opossums live everywhere in the midwest, but they are originally from the South--so they aren't really evolved for this cold weather. While most do ok, usually the ones we get in have frostbitten tail tips and/or ears. The ears will heal on their own, but often the tail tips need to be amputated. That opossum did great during surgery and is on the road to recovery!

The blizzard today is kind of funny as normally we have admitted several baby animals by this time of the year--this year, however, it's March 23 and we haven't admitted one yet--this hasn't happened in the last 8 years!

But them--right before I was about to leave for the day--we got our first baby animal of the season in---A RED FOX KIT!!!! soooo cute!!! He's pretty out of it--and has a respiratory infection--might have other underlying diseases (there's a reason mom abandoned him...) but we'll see how he does. What a great day:)

unknown...

2011-03-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

It's still slow, but that's ok--babies will be here in a few weeks!

Just wanted to post quickly. Often (well, most of the time) we don't know exactly why some animals are sick. To find out the exact reason an animal is sick (ie the exact bacterium, or virus or parasite or what exactly is going on inside) often requires expensive testing (cultures, virus isolation, cat scans, MRIs, etc) that we simply can't afford as a non profit. And honestly, if we did have a little extra money, we would probably put it into the care of the animals we're currently treating--as often finding out the exact cause won't change treatment. For instance, we have a squirrel with an abscess (a large infection under the skin causing a pocket of pus). We know it's a bacterial infection, we're just not sure which type of bacteria. So we pick a broad spectrum antibiotic and most of the time it heals. Is it ideal? no. Would we rather know the exact bacterium we're dealing with so we can start the animal on the exact antibiotic that will treat that exact infection from the start? yes. But is it worth the money to culture the hundreds-thousands of infections we see every year, when only a handful don't respond to the first drug we try?

It's a question we ask yourselves everyday and we have to pick the answer that is both good for the center and good for the animal.

So here we have a turkey who first presented knuckling over on one foot. The next day she couldn't stand at all (see pic) and had lost all feeling her legs. Ascending paralysis isn't very common in wildlife, but most of the differentials bear a poor prognosis. Would I like to be able to do a CT scan or MRI to look for spinal trauma? Would I like to do bloodwork and ultrasounds? I would love to do all those tests to try and find out what exactly is wrong with this bird. Unfortunately, even if we could afford them, we might be left without an answer, and her prognosis would likely be the same--grave.

Below is an opossum in treatment right now. He came in for emaciation (way too skinny!) he's gaining weight well but now one of his eyes looks cloudy. I'm treating him for several types of eye disease. Ideally, he would go see an ophthamologist--but again--expensive--so we're treating for the treatable (mainly infection) and we'll see how he does!

Now this doesn't mean we don't ever to advanced testing on our animals. When it's especially indicated (an infection that's not responding to broad spectrum antibiotics), when it effects humans (ie we send in bats that have bitten people so the bats can be tested for rabies), when it threatens the animal's life AND it's an endangered species or there is a good chance what it has could be easily treated--in these and many other situations, we do send out for advanced testing. But just like you weigh the costs vs benefits when you bring your pet to the vet, we have to do that, too. Just several thousand times each year:)

;(

2011-03-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

I euthanized Molly on wednesday. She was slowly getting worse, despite aggressive treatment. None of her tests made sense--we still don't know what was wrong with her. I consulted and worked with over half a dozen different veterinarians--it wasn't enough:(

Rest in peace, Molly ;(

Molly is sick:(

2011-03-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

My cat Molly is very sick. She has hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) which takes a long time to recover from. She *might* have some underlying disease (like cancer) but we can't find it with non-invasive tests. If she has cancer, I'm only going to do palliative treatment (not invasive surgery or chemo or radiation) so we're doing the palliative treatment (steroids) and treating the fatty liver--hoping she'll feel better soon. It's frustrating, but I need to at least give her a chance (b/c she may not have cancer at all!!) So we'll see *sigh*

Molly is sick and I have 3 part time jobs (in addition to my wildlife job) so I've been incredibly busy. Those are my excuses for not posting lately. sorry:(

In brighter news, scientists are trying to understand why naked mole rats don't get cancer. I learned a lot about these creatures by reading this article--very interesting! here is the article

I promise to try and post some cases later this week or next week.

2011-01-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

Even though it's winter, we have times when we are just as busy as summer!

Yesterday was one of those days. I was dealing with a very critical swan who was on oxygen, having a hard time breathing. My technician had anesthetized another swan (with gas anesthesia) to take xrays. While she was doing that, the doorbell rang-it was a tiny mouse that was dying--taking its last breaths. I didn't want it to suffer so put it in the same mask as the swan (we only have one anesthesia machine). The doorbell rang again! It was a squirrel who's finger was caught and bleeding in a birdfeeder. We needed to anesthetize him to get it out, so we took the swan off the mask to recover, I put the mouse on the table to dispose of later, anesthetized the squirrel, amputated the finger that was caught, quickly figured out the drug dosages I needed for him (so he could get those before he woke up from surgery) and put the swan in a closed room to recover. Whew! I then went to dispose of the mouse and was completely astonished to find it moving!! I gave it fluids, sugar, put it on a heating bad and 5 minutes later it was running around--a miracle mouse!

What an hour!

winter blues: opossum, baby turtle, and some cute babies:)

2010-12-21T19:05:00.000-08:00

Winter is always tough but has been a little tougher this year. Jeremy is still far away and will be far away for the next 2 years:( I had to euthanize Brutus, one of my pet rats, last week:( and things at the wildlife center are---well--it's winter. Winter means things are slow and we're getting more than our fare share of death at the center. The national average release rate for wildlife rehabilitation is only about ~30%. That means, over the entire year, only 30% of the animals we get in will survive. The rest will either die or be humanely euthanized. However, this percentage is skewed depending on the season. During the spring and summer, we get a lot of healthy babies admitted into our nurseries. They have a higher release rate, because many of the nursery animals come in healthy. ALL of the adults we get in are sick or injured (if they were healthy, people would not have been able to catch them) so they will have a lower average release rate. During the fall/winter, we only get in adults--which means the release rate goes down--and the death rate goes up--which can get a bit depressing. Right about now, during the first month that the lakes and foliage freezes over, we get a lot of chonic injury patients in. Animals are tough and many can live with injuries, like geese with broken wings, as long as there is abundant food and there is open water for them to swim away from predators. But come winter and the rest of the flock has left, the food is under 2 feet of snow and the lake has frozen over--the goose gets weak and sick--people are able to catch it b/c it's so sick--they bring it to me--I examine it's wing--find an old, healed fracture--healed in such a way that the goose will never be able to fly/migrate--I can't fix it--I have to euthanize it.

This scenario happens more often than not unfortunately. At least I can give the animal a death w/o suffering.

Most of our patients this year have injuries that were caused by humans--sad:(

This little turtle was "rescued" by people in september. Turtles are on their own from day 1 so they are never 'orphaned'. If the people would have left him alone he would be hibernating by now; instead, he's staying with us for the winter. Most people don't know how to properly house turtles, so these guys we get in are often sick from poor husbandry. We do the best we can at the center to give them an optimal habitat, but nothing can replicate mother nature so hopefully he makes it through until spring when we can release him!

the xray below is of an opossum that came in not able to use his hind legs. You can see one bullet that's near his spinal cord--that one is the one causing the problems. The rest of the bullets are just under the skin and aren't a problem. I showed one of the bullets I removed to my brother (who hunts) and he said they are from a pellet gun. That coupled with the fact that opossums don't attack (when threatened by a human, their defense is to sit still--or play dead--and open their mouths wide to show their abundant teeth--they virtually NEVER jump, lunge or run)--> so this means that someone (likely a kid) stood over this poor opossum, shot directly at him 6 times--that's 6 individual trigger pulls--and then left him to die. I was soooooo angry when i put this all together. So far, he's regained some movement back but it will be a month or two until we know if he's doing well enough for release.

So as not to end on a negative note, here's a picture of some uber cute cygnets!! Also--tomorrow the days start getting longer!! YAY!!! EAT IT WINTER SOLSTICE!!

COOT! SWANS! and a merganser:)

2010-12-10T13:26:00.001-08:00

Above is a red-breasted merganser that was admitted b/c he was stuck in a courtyard. Nothing wrong with him; likely just didn't have enough room to take off. Finders brought him in just in case he was hurt.
Above is an american coot! They are very cool birds--it's hard to see but instead of fully webbed feet, they have sort of scalloped webs on each toe. Since the most common reason for admittance is human-induced injury, this guy was no exception. Some kids had been beating on him when the finders found him. Luckily, some anti inflammatories and rest got this coot back to normal! He'll be released after this cold spell.
We get a lot of trumpeter swans in this time of year. Many of them have lead poisoning from eating tackle that's fallen to the bottom of lakes and ponds. By the time they are weak enough to be caught, they are often too sick to be saved. It happens to other animals as well. Most notably, bald eagles often eat dead deer (ie hunter shot but couldn't track) or deer guts from a kill that have lead shot in it, and end up with lead poisoning. Personally, and granted I'm biased, ALL tackle and shot should be made out of steel or other non-lead metals b/c of the risk to any animal that ingests it.

Turtles, swans and a beaver!

2010-11-20T17:18:00.001-08:00

Sorry for taking to long to post! The off-season (late fall/winter) gets REALLY slow. Instead of admitting 100 animals per day, we get 1-6--which makes the days drag! However, it's a great time to be able to really work-up cases and do thorough research. I have a few difficult cases that are frustrating, but at the same time I'm glad to have enough time to give them adequate attention.

The pic above is of a BEAVER we got in today--how cool!! we don't often get them in. This guy had a chunk of his tail gone--likely got attacked by an animal or caught in a trap. He's very lethargic-not sure if he was sick and that's why he got caught by an animal or if the trauma caused him to be lethargic. We'll see how he does!

One thing I hate about this time of year is the hunting. I'm necessarily for or against hunting in general, but I loathe getting in suffering animals who didn't die by the bullet. Just today we got in this crow with a bullet which shattered his wing. This poor guy was in so much pain--and the injury was too extensive for me to save, so he had to be humanely euthanized. We also received a opossum with 6 lead bullets in him! 6!!!!!!!! No broken bones and he's stable so I hope he'll pull through. Yesterday I got in a canada goose with a bullet that shattered his leg--he too needed to be euthanized. I realize many of these animals are in hunting season, but seriously--if you can't make a shot where you know the animal will die--DON'T SHOOT!!
Isn't this the cutest tiny painted turtle ever?!?! People "rescued" it after it hatched (remember--turtles are never orphans--they fully function right after they hatch and never spend any time with mom). Anyway, they are sick now since the finders kept them in sub-par conditions for 2 months. Hopefully they'll pull through as well!
This guy is so cool! He's only ~150 grams--a long tailed weasel! He somehow got caught in a live trap for mice (which is ironic b/c he eats them!) the finders were happy to take him back so he could naturally hunt the mice they didn't want. he looks grubby b/c he's been stuck in a tiny trap for a day.

Hope everyone is doing well!

fox w/ mange

2010-09-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

I think i'll try to make my posts shorter but more frequent....less words more pictures;)

Here is a juvenile fox we got in with mange 6 weeks ago.....

I did a skin scrape and saw a TON of mites. I sent the slide to a small animal practitioner and she said she'd never seen that many....ever....hee hee

After 6 weeks of anti-parasite medications, here is how he looks!

easy peasy:)

spiny softshell, woodchuck going to WLS and more!

2010-09-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

I've gotten a few woodchucks in this year with neurological issues. They are unbalanced, fall over or just don't act right. It could be caused by head trauma (ie hit by car) or an infectious disease (ie bacterial brain infection or random parasite migration through the brain) or something else. This adult female has not recovered and is still a bit wobbly, along with not fearing humans--hence why I'm holding her. If she was "right in the head" she would be biting me hard (her teeth are long and could take my finger off!) I would never hold a woodchuck like this unless I was very, very experienced and sure she wasn't going to bite. That being said, she has brain damage, and I can't predict if she'll decide to turn on me and take a Nay snack. But that's the risk I'm taking.

Bottom line:
Don't EVER handle a wild animal unless you've been trained to do so.

Anyway, since she wouldn't survive in the wild, she's found a new home at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary as an education animal!! I'm so excited that she'll be going to such a good home and will get to be an ambassador for wildlife in education programs.

Last week we got in this small spiny soft shell turtle. These turtles don't have a hard shell like the ones we're used to; they have a soft, leathery shell. They live at the bottoms of rivers, in the muck. This turtle was brought in because some people thought he was an orphan. Just like other turtles, "baby" spiny softshells are on their own from day 1 because mom doesn't stick around after she lays her eggs. So it's really impossible for a turtle to be an orphan---or all they all orphans?

Glue Traps

2010-07-30T09:58:00.001-07:00

Sadly, many of the animals we treat in the clinic are there because human-induced injuries. One of the most frustrating are glue traps. Glue traps are pieces of cardboard with a sticky gel on top that is marketed as a rodent trap. What happens is the rodent runs across it and becomes stuck to the gel. The rodents are then stuck there to die of starvation and many have been known to chew their legs off in desperation to get away.

The whole concept of the glue trap in regards to rodents is inhumane; it is even more frustrating when other species become stuck to these traps. Songbirds often come in stuck to these traps. If they are alive when they get to us, they require several baths in alternating baths of vegetable oil (to release them from the glue and wash off feather contamination) and dawn dishsoap (to wash the oil off) . This process is very stressful for the bird.

The other day 3 bats, a big brown and two nothern (keen's) myotis, were brought in having been stuck to a glue trap. As we examined the bats, we were very saddened to see the destruction glue traps can do. All three bats had fractured bones and wing-webbing ripped off. The bones were amputated (not attached to the bats) and once wing webbing is torn, it cannot be repaired. These injuries necessitated humane euthanasia.

We can only hope that those who read this post will pass on the knowledge of dangers of glue traps, in hopes that people will stop using them.

I'm going to refrain from posting pictures as some may find them graphic.

babies!

2010-07-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

Baby season is still in full force so I thought I'd share some pictures.

These are cedar waxwings who will be fledging soon. All songbirds go through a stage call the fledgling stage where they jump out of the next and spend up to a week on the ground learning how to feed themselves and fly. Their parents are still around, feeding them on the ground, but less often (tough love;) and won't come around if you are outside watching the babies. This is why we get so many fledglings into the center--people think they are abandoned when mom and dad are simply waiting for the predators (aka humans) to go away so they can feed their babies again.

We know these are cedar waxwings b/c the mouth color is a hot pink with iridescent strips on the sides (much more striking in person!)

Compare that to these nestling house sparrows. Not all baby birds look this different though. The younger they are, the harder they are to tell apart and sometimes we simply have to wait until they grow up until we can ID their species.

Since fledglings are like "teenagers", they aren't the smartest lot.

This fledgling/juvenile piliated woodpecker came in with hindlimb weakness/tail paralysis (likely from spinal trauma) and a foreign body in his stomach (see xray below--the white sharp edged trapezoid towards the right/bottom is a piece of glass/plastic). I had to go in surgically and remove it from his stomach. He recovered from his surgery well, and is VERY slowly regaining movement in his legs. I'm hoping he'll fully recover so we can release him, but his tail needs to follow suit...

This is a young common nighthawk (VERY cool species--sort of like a large chimney swift- they eat only when flying through the air catching bugs and their legs are positioned to cling to walls-->so they can't stand when on the ground...weird). He was doing well in the nursery until he became very bloated one evening. Xray revealed he had 10-11 stones in his stomach that were obstructing him. He needed emergency surgery. Unfortunately, he died during surgery:( he was very sick, so it wasn't surprising he didn't make it.

Below are some baby opossums inside their mother's pouch! They are about the size of a dime when they are born; they climb into her pouch and latch on to a teat. Opossums have 13 nipples so can accomodate many young.

The picture below is a grey squirrel a few days old. He weighed in at ~13 grams!

Whew! that's enough for now! I'll post more pics next week:)

updates and a new toad

2010-07-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

the snapper has recovered from her surgery and is doing ok right now. I'm hoping we can ward off infection with antibiotics and in a few months she'll be ready for release.

the toad unfortunately didn't have as good of an outcome.

she recovered well from that surgery (the stomach healed very nicely and she felt well enough to eat a grub on her own!) but she remained lethargic and didn’t pass any stool. To determine why she wasn’t fully recovered yet, we performed a barium study. A barium study is where you feed an animal a liquid that shows up bright white on xrays. Serial xrays are taken and you can see the barium as it passes through various parts of the gastrointestinal tract. Here is one taken ~ 1 hour after we fed her the barium. The blob on the right is barium in her stomach and you can see it snaking through the intestines to the left.we continued to take xrays but after 24 hours the barium became stuck at the junction of the small intestine and colon.She needed surgery again or she would die. So we went to surgery but unfortunately, the part of the intestine that had all the barium in it was extremely fragile and burst. She would have needed the fragile part of her intestine cut out and the two ends sewn together–but we couldn’t find why she became obstructed in the first place. It was decided to humanely euthanize her as the surgery she needed was very risky (high rate of failure) and we couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t become obstructed again. it seemed unfair to put her through more pain when we couldn’t give her a good prognosis.

However, admist the poor outcomes are always several more happy and healthy ones!

common snapping turtle

2010-06-28T18:01:00.001-07:00

This snapping turtle came in with several shell fractures. Several on the top shell (carapace) which I repaired by drilling holes in the edge of the shell on either side of the fracture and looping wire through the holes to hold the fracture in place....and one big on on her bottom shell (plastron). Here is a pic of her on her back (under anesthesia)

and a close-up of the fracture....the arrow is pointing to it and the black line is parallel to it so you can see how long it is. It extends from one edge of the plastron to the other so essentially, the 2 edges of the fracture are moveable and keep moving up and done (dorsal and ventral) as it's broken all the way through in that area.

I wanted to try a new technique where I drill screws into the shell and connect the screws with wire but there were a few problems

-the fracture pieces kept collapsing dorsally (into the turtle) even with the wire/screws so if i just did that, the pieces wouldn't stay aligned....they would "V" down into the turtle

-once the screws and wire were in place, i didn't want pressure on the screws or the fracture, and once the turtle was upright (sternal) she would be putting all of her weight on the screws since they would be sticking out a bit (they don't make stainless steel screws smaller than 1/2", ugh).

-the fracture edges were VERY hard to align even when manually holding them together--they didn't want to go into their "natural" position which would make repair difficult

SO after running around the center trying to think of an answer, i came up with this...i found a plastic lid from a heavy plastic jar and drilled holes in it, then placed the screws through the holes and into the holes I had drilled into the shell--this prevented the fracture edges from collapsing into her body...however, since the lid had to be very rigid, it was difficult to hold the fracture in place while placing the lid, so the fracture didn't align correctly BUT it's not collapsing into her body; it will heal---will just take longer.

the next problem was that i didn't want pressure on the lid at all or it might bump around the fracture.

so i took one of those pool noodles, cut it in half and glued some thick pieces around the lid...

and then glued a frisbee onto the pool noodles

she woke up very slow from anesthesia and I'm afraid may not make it. Manipulating the fracture so much (b/c it was so difficult to align) and having her on her back for ~30 min may have been too stressful for her....we'll see over the next few days.

I love my job:)

2010-06-23T19:47:00.001-07:00

I love my job:) I'm working 12-14 hour days, examining, admitting and determining treatments for 70+ new patients each day, rechecking the bulk of my 50+ existing cases each day, answering the phone and talking to the public when we don't have a front desk volunteer, examining nursery animals as they become ill and dealing with whatever curve balls come my way. I'm constantly multitasking and doing things i've never done before.

For instance, here is one story for tonight.

This American Toad presented very sick–she was very lethargic and her whole body was swollen. When amphibians (frogs and toads in particular) get a swollen body, it’s termed “edema disease” which can be caused by a long list of diseases–kidney disease, liver disease, electrolyte imbalances, and pretty much anything that can make an amphibian sick can cause edema disease.

A radiograph (pictured) showed a large amount of a mineral substance (likely sand/grit/stones) in her stomach (the white blob in the middle of the xray).

This grit was obstructing her stomach, not allowing anything to pass. The only way to get it out is surgery. This toad was so sick that she would likely die during surgery, but she would definitely die if we didn’t get the obstruction out of her stomach soon.So she went to surgery. By cutting through her skin and muscle layers, I was able to see the stomach, cut it open, pull the grit out and sew her back up. She survived surgery but is still very sick and may die despite our best efforts.We aren’t sure why she got the obstruction. Toads live in an environment where sand and grit are abundant–why did she eat so much to get obstructed? She was kept as a pet (wild animals never make good pets) so there is the possibility that having a limited environment and diet, she accidentally ate sand looking for food, or her insects were covered in a large amount of dirt–or perhaps she has some gastrointestinal disease that caused her stomach motility to slow, allowing small amounts of sand to accumulate over time–we’ll never know what exactly caused it. We’re just hoping we got it out in time and she’ll pull through.

some cases of old...

2010-05-21T09:44:00.001-07:00

thought these might be fun to post until i start my new job and have new cases to talk about:)

A small mature dog came in having been hit by a car. He was quite shocky so we immediately started IV fluids and pain medications. Owners approved xrays right away and here's what we found.

It's a bit hard to see in this small picture, but at the tip of the arrow are several fractures of the hip bones.

When animals are hit by cars, they can go into shock for several reasons. This guy was incredibly painful b/c of the fractures--this and the trauma in general can cause shock. He needed to stay in the hospital on IV fluids to help get him out of shock and continued pain medications to make him more comfortable. Also, many problems don't arise until several hours or even a day after the trauma--things like lung bruising may not be evident on the xrays until the next day so it's VERY important to keep these guys in hospital for treatment AND continued monitoring. Eventually (once he's more stable-->either at the regular vet or a referral center) he might need surgery to repair some of these fractures.

After discussing all of this with the owners, they explained they had no money. They knew how much xrays would cost when they approved it, but couldn't really afford that. I gave the owners the option of euthanizing which they refused. So they took him home were going to try to find a low-cost clinic in the morning. I tried to give him as much pain medication before he left as possible, but there was a good chance he would die at home. very sad. and my hands were tied.

A 20 lb puppy came in for 'possibly' eating a bottle cap. The owner saw the bottle cap on the floor and a few minutes later, it was gone--no where to be found. The puppy was acting completely normal when it came in. We took some xrays...below...

Definitely a bottle cap in the stomach- and compared to the size of the puppy, it's pretty big! Would likely obstruct the small intestine if we let it stay there.

So I gave the owner two options: 1) induce vomiting--risks include the sharp edges of the bottle cap scraping the esophagus on the way up-->causing scar tissue when it heals--> causing a stricture--> causing swallowing problems-->causing aspiration pneumonia +/- death...a little extreme and not a huge risk, but it's happened before. OR 2) surgery--go into the abdomen, cut into the stomach and take it out, risks include normal surgical risks (death, bleeding, infection, pain, etc) and surgery is much much more expensive (we're talking ~$300 for vomiting and $2000 for sugery...). So the owner chose to induce vomiting and voila!

The bottle cap came up along with huge amounts of dog food she just ate. Since it came up coated in partially digested food, likely no scratching of the esophagus but I sent home a medication that would help an scratches heal if they did occur.

what i should have done is sat the owner down for a serious intervention about his choice in beer-Labatt's blue? c'mon! even illinois has some decent local brews.

pft.

interesting article

2010-05-05T17:15:00.001-07:00

this article talks about how veterinarians are 4x as likely as the average person and twice as likely compared to other health professionals, to commit suicide.

http://www.myevt.com/columns/8/doctor-heal-thyself-st ress-veterinary-professional

i just thought it was an interesting factoid--I think people usually think that being a veterinarian is less stressful than being an MD, but that may not be the case. Or perhaps the profession attracks those who are more likely? in any case, I have a lot more respect for private practitioners having been on. what a task.

here we go...

2010-05-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for taking so long to post, but I'm vowing to get back on track;)

MANY changes have recently happened in my life.

I was very unhappy at my job in Chicago. Several other factors also went into the decision to resign, so I did. It's not as easy as it sounds. After 2 weeks of my bosses being extremely mad at me and trying to fire me sooner than the 60 days notice I gave, we finally came to the agreement that I would only work until April 24th (30 days) but would have to work overnights the remaining time as they didn't want me working during the day and establishing client relationships as I was leaving. Add ~50x more drama and you have the scenario of my last month at the clinic. oi.

so then i was jobless. I did not have another job lined up. I had enough savings that I could likely not work the entire summer, so i planned to move back to madison and apply for part-time jobs, but more importantly, take some time off. Once Jeremy graduated in the fall, we'd move to where ever he got a job.

The week after I finished working at the clinic, a friend (Jeremy's roommate, Mike) collapsed while jogging, and after 3 days on life support was declared brain dead. I drove up to Madison late on a Thursday night when I got the news. Also that night, I got a call from the MN Wildlife Rehabilitation Center offering me a job as a wildlife veterinarian (my DREAM job!) to say the least, Jeremy and I were in no state-of-mind to make such a big decision so I got a week to let them know if I'd accept or not.

We spent Friday in the hospital and the weekend with Mike's family and friends. It was completely out of the blue and everyone was shocked. A very, very sad and difficult weekend, but it helped to spend it with Mike's family and friends. The only other bright spot in the weekend was that all of Mike's organs were able to be donated and save the lives of others.

***Make sure to talk to your loved ones about organ donation now--so they know your wishes-->which I'm hoping are TO donate-why wouldn't you? you're dead--you're not going to care where your kidneys or liver ends up!***

ok, done with that soap box. Seriously though--I've been racking my brain trying to figure out why people wouldn't donate their organs (assuming their organs are eligible for donation) and I can't think of one good excuse--so if you have one, try me and we can have a discussion:)

so after talking with Jeremy, I accepted the position. I'm going to be a wildlife veterinarian at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic of Minnesota!!! I'm SO excited!! Jeremy will be looking for a job in the cities (where i'll be working) so he can move up there when he graduates in the fall. yay:)

http://www.wrcmn.org/

I start may 31st so i'm packing up my apt in chicago as fast as possible and moving to madison for a few weeks (before I move FARTHER away from Jeremy!) before going to st. paul.

here are some pics of my animals:)

this is Murderface

that's Brutus towards the top and Goldberg towards they bottom. They are in their playpen.

Molly is all curled-up, sleeping in my bed:)

All the boys sleeping in their hammock!

Molly is often entertained by the rats.

Brutus eating some foods...

forever and a day

2009-12-01T03:24:00.000-08:00

The clinic has slowed down a lot....they've cut the technicians hours b/c it's so slow...the tech's asked if the doctor's hours got cut and i laughed a lot, explaining that if i worked out the number of hours i actually worked with my salary, i make the same as them. cut our hours, ha! i wish.

I travel so much (madison or green bay) and my hours are NEVER consistent (from overnightst to days to afternoons to middle of the night 6 hour stints to godonlyknowswhat next schedule...)that I don't have time to volunteer at shelters (although I do try and volunteer at the wildlife center--see above picture of me and opossum:) or do any other extracurriculars (i'd LOVE to act again, or take more sign language classes, or mechanics classes...) which doesn't help my overall mood. BUT i was in madison a few weekends ago when a friend (who i graduated with) called to see if i wanted to help out with a rescue. >130 rabbits (plus cats, dogs, etc) were confiscated from a house based on animal cruelty charges--holy wow. I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I spent one of my precious days off driving 1.5 hours one way to the site and examined >70 rabbits (took over 6 hours-wow!) i wanted to stay and help with all 137 of them, but i had to drive back to chicago that night and there are only so many hours in a day...here is the news story...

http://www.channel3000.com/news/21611571/detail.html?ref=jsonline

It was a great experience and I was glad to be needed.

The only other new news is that I got some rats:) I've been trying to wait for rats to be relinquished at the clinic, but none have and i've been here for almost 6 months. So one day i said "i want to get some rats" and i went out and got some rats from a local shelter:)

The shelter had some young boys. I've never had young rats so I got two of them! After many weeks of debating, i have decided on:

Rube Murderface (it's from a tv series)

And William Goldberg

While I was there, I saw a 1.5 year old male (lifespan is 2-4 years, so he's already old!) named Brutus:) I felt bad that he might be spending his last months in a shelter so took him too:)

He's a sweet heart and actually likes to be pet--and miraculously- they ALL GET ALONG!!! so yippee for one HUGE RAT TUBE-TASTIC PLAYLAND OF AWESOMENESS!

other than that, not much new..jeremy is doing well (but far away in madison:( )...i really dislike my job but don't really have another choice so we'll see how long until i hit my limit....but in the meantime, if you can see it, here is the smallest patient i've treated so far--4 grams! a pygmy chameleon!!

more cases

2009-10-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

(me spaying a bunny:)
Sorry it's been so long since a post. Here are some more cases:

Here is a chameleon. Many male reptiles have reproductive organs completely separate from the urinary system--two structures (phallus) called hemipenes. These hemipenes can prolapse, or come out abnormally (and the animal can't retract them back in).

Here, the chameleon's tail is to the right and he is being held upside down. His hemipenes are prolapsed (two red structures).

Initial treatment is to push them back in and suture the openings closed. If they reprolapse when you take the sutures out, they might have to have them amputated--which we can do b/c they don't contain any part of the urinary system. So, we need to figure out what caused them to prolapse in the first place and correct it or they will prolapse again (parasites, husbandry, hormonal causes, etc)

This bird has an abnormal beak (obviously...)

several things can cause this such as congenital deformity (genetics--had since birth) or liver disease, and can be caused simply from an all seed diet (seed to birds is like junk food--they need a balanced diet consisting of veggies and commercial pellets).

And of course i couldn't end a blog w/o showing a picture of pus (you've been warned)

here is a turtle who has an abscess in his ear (hard to see, but it's the swelling on the right side of his head). Turtles often get these because they lack vitamin A (b/c owners don't feed them properly--a lot of exotic health problems are because we don't properly care for them, if you haven't figured that out yet:)\

here is the doctor squeezing the pus out of the ear...

and here is the pus when it was out:) don't you wish you had my job?

what are YOU looking at??

state fair!

2009-08-17T17:09:00.001-07:00

work is no fun! But i did go to the state fair with mom and gma vv on friday:)

The fair was complete with...

CHICKENS!!

adorable black frizzle cochin!
(this guy has nuclear sclerosis in his eye--the white spot in his pupil! an old age change that happens to the lens...i thought it was pretty cool....but then again, i'm a nerd:)

street performers....

the largest kohlrabi i've ever seen....

deep fried EVERYTHING (gag!)

and of course, CREAM PUFFS!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!YAY!!!!!!!!!

throw in an elvis impersonator, beer and a bazillion vendors (*coughmombought$150mattresspadcough*) and there you have it--the state fair!!!

so nostalgic and wonderful:)

i am a salesman first, a veterinarian second

2009-08-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

I am finally realizing this and completely sick of it already.

I have to "sell" the idea that the client's pet needs (yes needs, i never push testing or treatment that an animal doesn't need) treatment and then convince them to let me do it.

my boss calls it "educating" the owners. And while, yes, there is an enormous amount of educating going on, and the idea sounds great--just educate the owners, explain the logic behind why their pet needs this, and they will agree--you can't just explain it because the owner might not believe you (i look too young, i must not know what the hell i'm talking about) or chooses to ignore you or simply would rather spend the money on a pradda bag than their pet. (i don't even know if i spelled that right) (disclaimer: for those who actually can't afford it--i empathize and we always figure out what will fit their budget, i understand, i am poverty if you consider my debt)

So i need to "Educate" in a persuasive manner which involves all aspects of sales. And then if we make the sale, we are expected to be PERFECT (which is humanly impossible, right? so i'm not sure how that works--but that's a whole other post...)

All i wanted to do was help animals. *sigh*

I can't imagine how pediatricians feel.

thanks for letting me vent.

cases and pictures:)

2009-07-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

We had a veterinary student from France visiting for several weeks; she took pictures of practically everything and I copied all her pics before she left *evil laugh* so here are just a few cases:)

Rabbits gastrointestinal tract is complex (just like a horse, in fact...actually, they are kind of little horses...hopefully no zoo DVMs read this or they will hunt me down...) and pretty much any illness or stress can cause their gastrointestinal tract to slow or shut down= emergency situation. If it's serious, we hospitalize, place IV catheters for fluids, start medications, syringe feeding etc. until they are eating on their own and producing normal stools.

Check out this little Chinese Water Dragon. His owner lets him free-roam the house, which is great for enrichment (this guy never gets bored!) but very bad for safety. Last week he ate an earing (and passed it). This time, however, his dietary indiscretion (aka eating everything and anything) got him into trouble. Check out the xray below:
yup, he ate a sewing needle and thread. he needed abdominal surgery to remove.

Here is the little guy after surgery, on fluids (since his veins are so tiny, he has to have a catheter in a bone in his leg)

that's all for now:) take care!

finally feeling stupid....

2009-07-31T16:04:00.001-07:00

Throughout fourth year all my classmates would complain that they felt stupid--they didn't know anything, were constantly corrected by doctors, etc etc. My view on fourth year was that I wasn't supposed to know everything--in fact, it's expected that I knew barely anything. That's what fourth year is about--learning--if I knew everything I wouldn't still be in school. So I went though fourth year happy when i remembered something, and shrugged it off when i didn't.

When i started my job here, I had the same mindset because we didn't learn very much exotic animal medicine in school. And even though I've only been working a few months, I still feel like i should know more and it frustrates me. My boss asked me one day, "You look frustrated?" and i replied, "I get frustrated when I don't know everything, so I'll probably be frustrated for the next few years." She laughed and I realized the statement was completely true. Oh well. It will come.

But along the way will come the crazy clients. Exotic medicine is definitely full of a higher percentage of "special" clients (takes one to know one, right?) which is fine--I can handle the client who tells me I'm unhealthy being a vegetarian (don't even ask me how we got on that line of conversation--and then she wouldn't authorize treatment, oi) or the chinchilla owner who explains in a loud, fast 5 minute monologue that he doesn't believe in paying hospital bills so he doesn't (then move to canada...i didn't say it out loud) but he pays all of his vet bills, but i cannot handle the belligerent client....had my first one last week. In retrospect I probably should have walked out of the room earlier after being yelled at, told i was speaking disrespectfully (i think i had said two sentences before he started ranting) etc. In the end, he yelled at every employee in the clinic and was fired . Yes, we fire clients...apparently, economics says we should fire 10% of our clients to increase our productivity (we don't).

Later that week, another client was screaming at my boss over the phone that she was going to picket our clinic because we killed her rabbit (we didn't).

It comes in cycles...maybe every third full moon?....soon, hopefully, the cycle will end and I can get back to learning medicine instead of trying to predict and head-off unstable people.

They let me be the vet!

2009-07-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

I officially have my Illinois license and they cut me loose! Well not really--I still consult the senior vets on practically every single case and they read all my records before they get filed, but I'm no longer following them around; I see my own cases, talk to clients and develop treatment plans. And I have to say--being the vet is way better than in "fourth year mode" (following the primary vet around). It's amazing how my mindset immediately changed, and how much more fun/interesting/etc it is because it's me who's invested in the case.

But along with the fun of developing treatment plans and the joy of helping pets get better, comes the horrible part of breaking bad news. I had to do that the other night and man did it suck. It was even harder because the treatment, which we had to do--didn't have a choice, is what was causing this animal to suffer and die. The poor owners and animal had been through so much and done everything we wanted them to do--and the ailment was somewhat minor on the surface:(

But that's the way it goes. If it was all happy/joyous news then everyone would be a vet.

In brighter news, I took a tour of the local wildlife center, and will probably start volunteering there in a few weeks to a month...once the paperwork goes through.

Nothing else new here.

I'll have to take some pics randomly so i have some to post next time. :)

i rode the train!

2009-06-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

Chicago, being the 3rd largest city in the US i'm told, has a decent public transportation system. Which is good because apparently "cheap" parking downtown is $25/day on the weekend....eek! So there's the train (the L-line..."el" for elevated train...although it turns into a subway when it gets to the city....strange name then ) the metra (bus...i think) and the pace( also a bus i think....) i didn't venture the buses yet...maybe another day.

This weekend was taste of Chicago (above pic) so i ventured out of my safe-shell-apt and took the train (pic below) (2 mi from my house) into chicago, and it dropped me 4 blocks from taste....super convenient and only $4.50 round trip!

and here is a cute picture of my cat....dad made a scratching post for her and i put the sisal rope on....pretty sweet....now just need to get her to use it...

Other than that not much new...job is going well...it's a job...better than a cat/dog practice though...I do start volunteering at the local wildlife center though so i'm super excited for that!!

my new apt

2009-06-19T14:14:00.001-07:00

it's so hot today, i sweat even when not moving....so i thought i'd finally post pics of my apt

Above is the street i live on...it's pretty quiet with lots of families and small children.

Both sides of my building...I live upstairs, the owner and his wife live in the 1st floor

Here is the start to my veggie garden:) I'm starting it late, but should make it in before the frost...

1/2 of my kitchen...the back door is there too...sorry for the mess in ALL the pics...i took them before i was unpacked (actually i'm not unpacked yet....for only working 45 hours a week, i seem to be busy all the time!)

the other half of my kitchen:)

the enormous pantry in my kitchen!

there's a spice rack BUILT INTO THE WALL!!!

my bedroom:) i put black curtains up so i can sleep during the day when i work night

my huge closet

the nice bathroom

a closet in the hallway with a window in it:)

two more closets in the hallway

2nd bedroom

Dining room which i'm turning into my "reading room"

other side of hte "reading room"

living room...previous tenants left the couch here...only a year and a half old! woo hoo!

faux fireplace in the living room

and this is my new cat, Molly. She is old (13-17 years old). Her owner, besides having dementia, broke her hip and had to go to a nursing home that doesn't take cats:( so i suckered myself into taking her (if she would go to a shelter, she would be euthanized b/c of her age)

She is cranky. and when stressed (like she is now living in a new home) vomits. She also likes to shoot her pee over the side of the litter box....just as i got her high sided litter boxes, she decided to pee on my papasan. She is cute though. so we have a love hate relationship and she gets locked into rooms with minimal furniture at night. hopefully she grows out of this phase hahahahaha

first day on the job....

2009-06-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

I'll post later when i have pictures of my new apt, about the move, where i live...etc....but for now...

THE FIRST DAY OF MY NEW JOB!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

and it was an overnight...i haven't worked an overnight in years....i hope they get easier.....oi

BUT, and i forget because i was so tired, my FIRST patient was a young hedgehog who came in DYING. her heart stopped even. and i (and the other doctor) BROUGHT HER BACK TO LIFE!!! *Evil laugh*

no really, it happened. cool, huh?

here's a picture of what she looked liked...cutest thing ever...

holy hell i'm a doctor!

2009-06-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

GRADUATION!!! AHHH!!!!

Yep. I'm a doctor:)

I can't believe this day has come!!! AHHH!!! That's all the words i have:)

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME DOWN TO MADISON TO MAKE THIS DAY AWESOME:):):)

The Raptor Center

2009-05-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

The Raptor Center was slow, but I did learn a lot. I did my best to pick everyone's brains with every case and read the literature and protocols they had available. Here are some pictures:

This eagle is being anesthetized so his wound over an a wing fracture can be cleaned and closed.

It's kind of hard to see, but the wing on your left hand side has a fracture near the elbow. It's a difficult surgery since it's so near the elbow. The surgery went ok, but unfortunately, he developed such a large amount of tissue reaction hear the surgery site that would not resolve--and he had to be euthanized:(

I didn't get to do any surgery, but I got to watch a lot and learned about avian orthopedics (which is one of the BIG reasons I went to the raptor center). I did do some bone pinning in carcasses which was fun.

This is a "brancher" great-horned owl. So call that because he jumps out of the nest and hops/glides from branch to branch learning to fly while still being cared for by mom. He jumped/glided/flew/fell to the ground in someone's yard, so we just ran out and put him back in the tree..what a great photo-op!

AND it was BABY season so I got to examine and even help re-nest some baby raptors!!
This is a baby great-horned owl nestling--a runt for that time of the season!

Another nestling great-horned.
I had an AMAZING opportunity to go out with this little guy and watch a tree-climber put him into a nest with 3 other nestlings.

Can you see the nest? it's the dark area at the top of the tree line in the middle-ish of the picture

Here is mom in the nest as we arrived. The white specks in the nest are the three owlets. Mom left as soon as the climber began to climb. The whole time he was working on the nest you could hear crows harassing the adult owl a few hundred feet away in some trees.

It was pretty insane. the tree was no more than 1-1.5' in diameter and at least a 100' up! Also--the nest was too small to add another chick to--so the tree-climber (who was a tall, solid-built man!) had to climb this wimpy little, wobbly, blowing-in-the-high-winds-tree, put the existing owlets into a bag, lower them to us, hoist branches we had gathered up, build the nest up with the branches and wire, hoist the owlets + ours up and put them back in the nest.

Beginning the climb...

Can you appreciate the height? Winds were incredibly strong and a few times the top of the tree was violently swaying, i don't know, like 20 feet from side to side.

Here's a video of him packing up the existing owlets and lowering them down in a bag (sorry about the side-ways---not sure how to fix it)

Graduation!!!

2009-04-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 16 9:30 AM Memorial Union, Madison, WI
Lunch at noon at my house:)
(email me for directions and details!!)

more wildlife center, then onto the raptor center!

2009-04-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

WHEW!!! it is INSANELY busy at the wildlife center! WHAT A BLAST!!!

Speaking of squirrels (see pic above;), I had a lot of sad cases while I was at the wildlife center, but probably the saddest cases involved squirrels. I had admitted two squirrels, a red squirrel and a grey squirrel, from different people, where the finders had found the squirrels as babies and instead of bring them to us, had "raised them".

First, these squirrels were incredibly lucky to have survived being raised by non-licensed rehabbers; most die from diarrhea due to a bad diet, such as dog milk replacer. At the center, we use a special squirrel formula, special medications, and techniques.

Second, since these squirrels were raised by non-rehabbers they were severely habituated and slightly imprinted. These squirrels had no fear of people. They would run up and down us while we tried to transfer them to cages, jumping off our heads and running around the room. You cannot release a squirrel that's going to run up and down people at the park. It's dangerous.

Making these guys "re-wild" is not an option as they were adults and had been raised since they were little. There is no hope at that point, unfortunately. Other than having no fear of people, these guys were healthy; my stupid bleeding heart was grasping at straws and i tried setting each one up in their own housing while i could try to contact zoos to see if they had a squirrel exhibit.

The grey squirrel turned how to be not only habituated but also aggressive, biting my glove when handled. No zoo keeper is going to want to get mauled whenever they enter an exhibit. The red squirrel was literlly going insane in his large outdoor pen; he could not mentally handle being in captivity, and even if i found him a HUGE exhibit, he would also run up and down the keepers which isn't safe and not a good example for the public.

So I was forced to euthanize two healthy adult squirrels because people were either trying to help, or thought they were cute---either way, they were not responsible and did not seek out the appropriate resources when they came across these guys. It's a sad situation that happens all too often.

Sorry--i'll get off my soap box now:)

So now i'm at the raptor center!!! I've come on at an odd time, i'm told, as they have a companion bird rotation going on at the same time...so far i've...
-performed an endoscopic exploratory on a LIVE (but anesthetized) quail
-went birdwatching (for the first time--quite fun!)
-went to the zoo
-observed a surgery to repair a humerus of a red-tailed hawk

hopefully i'll get to see more surgeries as i hope to learn a lot about avian orthopedics.

ok, i'm finally done:) thanks for reading:) and SEE YOU AT GRADUATION WHICH IS IN 2 WEEKS!! AHHHHHHH!!

this is a box turtle we found while bird watching...he has a transmitter glued to his shell and some red paint so the scientist who is tracking him can find him a bit easier...very cool!

The Wildlife Center

2009-04-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

I am finally at the wildlife rehabilitation center...finishing up my third week here and it has been AWESOME!!!! AHHH!!! I'm working super long days, but loving every minute of it--my passion for veterinary medicine is renewed:)

Here are some pictures so far:

Here are some baby bunnies. Starting about my 4th day of working at the center, we got hit HARD with baby bunnies. I think right now we probably have somewhere between 75-100 baby bunnies to feed every day. People think they are helping the buns--b/c they touched it or their dog found it--and some people are just ignorant....here are some facts:
-mothers will not abandon their young b/c you touched their babies and they can smell it (it's a myth)
-if you disrupt a nest and the buns are not injured, you can just reassemble the nest with their materials or leaves and such and the mother will come back
-the mother rabbit only comes 1-2 times per day so you will NEVER see her. She watching and if she sees predators (including you) she won't go anywhere near the nest so she doesn't draw attention to it
-if your dog finds the nest, but the uninjured buns back and leash your dog for 2 weeks--that's all the time it takes for the buns to grow up and get out of your yard:)
-i understand that people have gardens and rabbits can be a nuisance, but even if you "relocate" them to another area, more rabbits will set up shop in your yard...the only way to keep them out is to "rabbit-proof" your whole yard...and besides, they were there first! just fence in your garden. simple.
-baby bunnies are SUPER HARD to raise...even the best bunny rehabbers can only save about 25% of the orphans they take in...so leaving the buns in the nest is always the first choice.
-if you're worried the mother won't come back, put the buns in the nest and place a string in a design (like a circle or square) on top of the nest...if it's disturbed the next morning, you know mom is taking care of them...if not, it's ok to bring them to a rehabber

whew!!! that was a lot!! i've had to repeat that schpeel a lot these past few weeks;)

I have depressing videos of a raccoon and a coyote with distemper but they are sad so i won't post...the main message is to make sure to vaccinate your dogs!!!!!!!!!!!!! distemper is deadly!!

and here is a cute picture of a ruby-crowned kinglet:)
more to come later!

holy crap i got a job!

2009-04-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

so after I didn't "match" i was scared....I had been watching the job market for months and NO ONE was hiring for the job I wanted (working with exotics/wildlife). It terrifies me to work in a practice with mostly cats and dogs...i think i'm just really burnt out on them....

In desperation, I emailed random exotics practices across the country and found one last exotics internship that was still hiring in WA. I talked to the vet and booked a flight to seattle...rental car...and hotel...expensive...

So i'm in the airport on a layover when i get two voicemails from clinics looking to hire.

to shorten the story...one of the clinics owners was INSANE!!! Seattle offered me the job...and the next day, a clinic in chicago offered me a job....they were comparable jobs (working with exotics and birds) and after a lot of thought i took the job in chicago.

I'M GOING TO BE AN AVIAN AND EXOTICS VETERINARIAN!!! yay:)

now i'm on externship at the minnesota wildlife rehab center and it is AWESOME!!!

today we gave a blood transfusion to a swan!!! AHH!

i'm having a blast:) more later!

a news story with a "state-of-the-art" chicken house

2009-03-03T18:16:00.001-08:00

http://www.wgal.com/video/18841660/index.html

and some european designs:
http://www.vencomatic.net/index.php?c=&n=&id=2

soft tissue surgery

2009-03-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

Today I spent 5 hours surgically mutilating a cat.

Coming off of the poultry rotation (which was extremely morally taxing) onto a rotation where i would be pretty much forced to participate in the two surgeries i'm morally against---is a LOT to deal with.

We do kidney transplants at this school on cats. The "donor" cat comes from a company that breeds cats for research. The owners of the "recipient" are required to adopt the donor cat (which is good....) The problem is that every household cat will eventually die from renal disease (if something else doesn't kill it first). So by taking a kidney away from the donor cat, you are almost definitely shortening it's life.

I feel like i'm playing god by doing this.

To add to the emotional stress a kidney transplant already puts me through, the owner wants the donor cat declawed.

4 paw declawed.

i FREAKED OUT. Besides there being a billion things wrong with just declawing a cat right off the bat (you should try things like encouraging appropriate scratching---having enough scratching posts, toys etc--and soft paws before you think about declawing) because the majority of cats will NOT ruin your furniture, rugs or scratch you if you take those steps---> ok so besides me being upset with the owner wanting to declaw the cat w/o evening meeting him (he NEVER puts his claws out, btw), she wants him 4 paw declawed which there is no reason ever (besides disease) to declaw a cat in all 4 paws.

never.

the vet school usually won't do all four paws b/c it's unnecessary...so we told her we'd do 2 paws....my classmate even tried to introduce the idea of alternatives and she threatened us.

"if you don't declaw all 4 then i'm just going ot have it done when i get him home"

so our surgeons caved.

i was so upset.

Here i was, just coming off of a 4 hour morally corrupt surgery (in my mind) and now i (ME!) have to cut off the tips of all this cats fingers.

btw--when you declaw a cat, it's like cutting off your fingers at the first joint.

so it was an emotionally draining day. I saved the tips of his fingers that we cut off so i have something to show people who want to do it. it was moving for me to see his 20 little bones sitting on the drape at the end of the surgery. i'll take a pic for the next post.

ALSO--i did NOT match:( i am very sad and incredibly freaked out. I only applied to two clinics so i didn't have high hopes, but now i'm really scared. i dont' just want to work with cats and dogs--infact i think i'll go crazy if i'm forced to. it's just not my cup of tea. i want to work with exotics and wildlife. but apparently that's too much to ask for:(

so we'll see how the job hunting goes....wish me luck

The Tenth and final day 2.20.09

2009-02-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of my poultry rotation. I go through phases of being callus and doing well, and then crashing like last night/today. I didn't realize how emotionally spent I was--i am done. good thing it's the last day.

But what a day it was.

In the morning, we went to a chicken slaughter/processing facility. Bringing cameras into slaughter plants is a huge no-no (they are afraid animal rights people will freak out when they see the videos--which doesn't much make sense to me. if the slaughterhouses were to make their own video and publish it, then they could make sure everything is pristine, they could boast their welfare programs (this plant had a welfare program where an independent group came and audit-ed them on welfare standards), etc etc. it would put a good spin on it, people would get over their initial shock of seeing animals die and they would feel more comfortable with it. i think an open policy would be better for the industry...whatever..

so how is a chicken slaughtered....

the broiler chickens are trucked to teh slaugher plant on a truck like this (i know these are ducks, but it's the same setup)

A pallet of cages is unloaded with a machine (each pallet is like 10 layers high)...the pallet of cages is tipped and dumps the birds on to a conveyor belt.

The conveyor belt brings the chickens into the slaughter plant.

Works grab the chickens and put them into "shackles" like this...

this was the part i had a problem with--the workers were really rough when shackling the birds (who were conscious)...

Then the chickens are dipped (6-10inches) into a water bath that is electrified--> this "stuns" them (supposedly--i couldn't see as they went into the bath--only after they had come out in a few seconds--they appeared stunned, but their nerves made them shudder--it was weird)

Then the chickens go through a machine that chops off their heads. They have a guy after that machine with a knife to cut heads off any chickens that miss that machine (~1/20 need something cut off)

Then the chickens go in a scalder which loosens the feathers, then the feather picker (machine with ton of rubber fingers), then the carcasses get inspected by the usda and parts get cut off, or condemned or whatever. then the carcass gets processed.

The processing part is super extensive and requires a ton of machines and workers. i was amazed by how complicated it is. This plant was also very clean. which was good i guess.

It was an interesting experience over all and i wish i had pictures and videos to show you:( it's hard for people to learn how their food gets to the plate when those who supply it won't let you see. *sigh*

The Ninth Day 2.19.09

2009-02-20T15:57:00.000-08:00

Today, after a slow morning, we went to a cage-free layer house run by the Amish (despite the fact that the house utilized electricity...)

If i remember right, this house had ~150,000 birds in the house, partitioned off into 4 pens.

While walking through, i was trying to compare the animal welfare to the cages houses I saw. This house was nice in that the floor were slatted so all the poo fell into a "pit" and thus the smell was better than a lot of the other houses i've been in, and very clean. There was more feather loss in this flock (they were pecking each other--which often happens with this strain of birds when they get older). These were a lot calmer birds, b/c of their genetics. They seemed "happier" to be, but they were calmer birds in general, so idk.

The Eighth Day 2.18.09

2009-02-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

Today all i did was listen to some lectures...that were kind of boring....oh well:)

The Seventh Day 2.17.09

2009-02-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

Today we went to another layer farm. This one was slightly different in that under each set of cages there was a manure belt. The belt got from one end of the house to the other end in 3-4 days in one house. The other house was sort of the same but the belt was moved more often b/c the manure didn't dry out as well. In both houses, the smell was better than in the house with the "pit".

Here are some pictures of the manure belts...

The first house had 6 layers of cages; the downside was that you had to use a ladder or lift to even see the top 2-3 rows.

The second house had walk ways for the top 3 layers....you and kind of see it below...

There were 7 birds per cage...and they were pretty darn flighty...

oh and one correction--industry standards say pullets need 44 sq inches per bird, but adult layers need 67 sq inches per bird...so that's like slightly bigger than 8" x 8".

Here are some other random pictures...

(the poo pile)

The Sixth Day 2.16.09

2009-02-16T15:49:00.000-08:00

Today was boring. The doctor was gone so i sat at the lab all day and got work done. That's all.

The Fifth Day 2.13.09 (friday the 13th!)

2009-02-13T20:53:00.000-08:00

This morning we went to a Mennonite farm that raises ~4000 silkie chickens for the live bird market. There were a few rooms where i had to wear my mask because the ammonia smell was overpowering, but compared to the other farms i visited, this was the "best" one. It was also nice because the woman who took care of the birds seemed to really care about them, and expressed how she struggled with the fact that these animals were a business--something that had no been expressed at any farm. It was a better day than the previous farm visits.

There are about ~1000 birds in each room. The large building is split up into 4 rooms: the chicks occupy the middle two rooms, and eventually the flock is moved to the outer two rooms at a certain age. Feeders are hand filled throughout the room, and nipple drinkers hang from teh ceiling in rows. The litter is not changed or added to--this is typical.

The flock FLIPPED OUT when i used my flash, dashing to the other end of the barn.

The Fourth Day 2.12.09

2009-02-13T15:50:00.000-08:00

Today we went to a hatchery. This hatchery is HUGE and hatches chicks out for layer farms.

The eggs come from the breeder farm on a truck, already loaded onto these racks

Then they sit in the "cooler" (65 degrees) for 1-7 days until they are scheduled to go in the incubator which looks like this

once in the incubators, they have 12 hours of "pre-heat" where the temperature is gradually raised from the 65 deg to 103 or 105 or something high like that. Then that temp is gradually dropped as the embryos get bigger, until it's about 98 deg around day 17.

The at day 17 the eggs are moved from the incubators to the "hatchers". The chicks are transferred from the turner racks to flat trays, awaiting hatching (at day 21). Here is a video of the chicks the day after they hatched, still in teh "hatcher" waiting to go to the processing room.

After the chicks have been hatched for one day and are dry, they are brought to the separator room where a machine dumps them on to these slats that let the chicks fall through but catch most of the eggs and crap.

After being separated, the chicks travel on a conveyor belt to the next door room. They go around in a circle while the workers determine if they are male or female by the length of their wing feathers. They throw them into a female or male chute. The females (inner, lower conveyor after sexing) go onto the vaccinators (next movie). The males are in the outer, lower chute and fall via a trapped door into a macerator. A macerator is like a high powered blender. literally. the male chicks of the layer strain get macerated in this blender. it sounds horrible, and isn't the best, but the reports i've read say the chicks die in 0.3 seconds....i don't know, there isn't another alternative for the industry though.

then the chicks continued on the conveyor belt to the vaccinators...they are giving a vaccine under the skin via an automated machine:

After that, the chicks are loaded into stackable trays (100 each) and put in the holding room (heated) until the truck comes to ship them to farms.

So that's the hatchery. I guess i should be proud of myself for only shooting my mouth once.

The Third Day 2.11.09

2009-02-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

This morning we got up early to go with the third year vet students to a pullet farm (pullets are young female chickens before they’ve started to lay eggs). At this house, the pullets are raised until they are of egg-laying age (around 20 weeks) then shipped to a layer house.

The chicks arrive around a day of age in boxes with 100 in each box. Workers then transfer the chicks to the top row of cages. As the chicks grow, some are transferred to the lower cages until all 5 rows are crammed full of birds.

At 10 days of age, the chicks get their beaks clipped (aka chopped off) and are vaccinated.

Here are some more pictures:

EVERY poultry farm we go on we have to suit up in this gear for biosecurity reasons (we don't want to be bringing diseases into the farms, especially since we travel to so many). Don't we all look ridiculous? hahahaha

Here is me standing inbetween two isles of cages.

The house was so long i couldnt' see the other side from one end....

I had trouble counting the birds in the cage b/c they were so scared and kept freaking out when the saw people...i think there are about 14 birds per cage. Again, crowded, but up to industry standards.

They are still cute:)

This was sad. Some of the chicks were "mis-sexed" at the hatchery--this is a group of males....the farm was holding these guys for the third years to practice blood draws....but since the third years did that in another lab, they had no purpose and were going to be killed. Well, they were killed. Males have no use in the layer industry, as you'll see in the next post...

This is the pit in this house....this is the house were they clean it often, so the smell was better (still not fresh air, but as good as it gets). The sad part was that chickens escape from their cages all the time and fall into the pit--as you can see in this pic. These chickens had incredible feather condition because they weren't tore up by the cage wires....they will be killed when the pit is cleaned, as they don't want to bring any disease from the pit up to the cages.

This is the view from the pit up at the bottom of the cages.

this is a common site--a dead chicken trampled in the cage....dead birds are cleared from the cages 1-2 times per day.

And then I spent the afternoon doing nothing in the poultry lab.I I can’t get my laptop online in this building so I can’t do any of my work and I have errands to run….

Oh!!! Before I go, I need to share the worst part of PA: the state is trying to keep me away from good beer! AHHHHHHHHH!!! OH NO!!!!! THE HORROR!!!

I’m used to Madison where there is a liquor store 5 blocks from ANY location and Wisconsin in general, it’s very easy to find a store with a selection.

So in PA, there is no alcohol sold in stores (obstacle #1) and the liquor/wine stores are state run (weird) so there is NO beer in those stores (obstacle #2). The nearest store that sells any kind of beer is a 10 minute drive—and it only sells wholesale beer in nothing less than 24 bottles—now I like my beer, and can make friends with the UPenn students by supplying beer to the dorm, but I want to try different kinds of local beer and I can’t do that a 24 pack at a time (obstacle #3).

So after much researching, I found what appears from the website to be a decent beer store 17 miles away. It had better be worth the drive, or I swear Pennsylvania, I shall never return! Hahahaha!

Here is some mediocre beer:

The Second Day 2.10.09

2009-02-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

Today was more like what I thought this rotation was going to be.

We spent the morning with a lab technician who showed us how to inoculate 9 day old chick fetuses with bird blood, to see if the avian influenza virus grows. There are a lot of live bird markets out here where live chickens, turkeys, ducks, quail, etc are traded on the street. Law requires that one out of so many of these birds have samples taken that are then run through of two tests (one being inoculating chick fetuses) to see if that bird has avian influenza. It’s a pretty interesting series of tests.

In the afternoon we went to a commercial layer farm (chickens that lay eggs). I’m told this was a “good” farm as far as air quality and “welfare” is concerned, which really doesn’t say much about the industry, I think…Here are some pictures to help walk through the experience….

These are the "houses" of laying hens. All 7 houses together hold almost 1 million birds. INSANE!

here are some workers packaging eggs

this worker is applying slight pressure to all the eggs so she will exacerbate any cracks...then the eggs go into a machine that shines a bright light on to find the cracks, then those eggs are pitched...also, a sound wave is sent through the eggs that also looks for cracks (somehow...)

Here is inside a layer house. The cages are stacked 5 rows high, slightly offset so the chicken manure doesn't fall only in the cage below, but some falls down the open middle in the "pit" below.

There are 7 chickens in each cage. They are crammed in so tightly that all the birds cannot stand or sit at the same time--they need to alternate. Apparently, the "welfare" standard is that each laying hen needs 44 sq inches of floor space--which boggles my mind because that's only an area 5"x8" which is smaller than the bird's body!!

It's kind of hard to see but on either side of the cages (on one end of the rows) are these conveyor belts with rubber fingers on them that gently brought the eggs from each level down to the conveyor belt that brought the eggs out of the house to the packaging room.

This is the "pit". All of the chicken poo falls into the "basement" of the chicken house. This house cleaned out the "pit" once a year. that's right. once a year--which is typical for most layer houses. in this house you can see the manure piling almost as high as the ceiling. notice the dust that my camera lens caught...gross. (the next day we visited a house that cleaned their pit 1-4 times a month and the smell was sooooooo much better there).

This is an "air conditioner" that cools water....the water is them misted over the birds during the summer to keep them cool. This farm only had it in 2/7 houses....most farms don't this. Each summer mortality increases due to heat exhaustion; this cooler keeps the houses ~5deg F cooler than the non cooled houses which means incredibly less mortality.

So that was my trip to the layer house. The ammonia smell was so intense in the house, that I was hacking up phlegm the whole next day...can't imagine what it's like for the hens to never breathe fresh air:(

The First Day 2.9.09

2009-02-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of my poultry rotation and it was kind of weird. We started out the morning by doing nothing. At least it gave me time to check my email and look up the locations of some grocery stores. Then we left right before lunch to drive a few hours to a meeting where a sales guy was pitching some ventilation system to broiler producers. Then, after the vet schmoozed for 20 min after the meeting, we headed to the “field lab” to do a “case”.

A “case” means that a producer is having a problem (usually increased death rate) and they dropped off dead chickens and some live chickens. Usually, we draw blood from the live chickens (to check various things like blood glucose, send in for more testing, etc), then euthanize them (via cervical dislocation…essentially you grab the head in one hand, the feet in the other, pull and twist to separate the neck vertebrae, thus severing the spinal cord…I’m definitely not in favor of cervical dislocation in other species, however, I’ve used euthanasia solution (the stuff they use to euthanize cats and dogs) in production poultry and it doesn’t work…so I’m not sure how else to euthanize them so I’ve come to the fact that I’ll have to learn how to cervically dislocate chickens…and I learned today) :(

Then we perform necropsies (like an autopsy, but on a non-human animal) on all the animals. These necropsies are quick and dirty. We’re looking for big lesions to give us a diagnosis.

Today, we did a “case “ of 3 day old chicks that died from “starve-out”. From talking to the vet and reading, starve-out is when chicks die at 3-4 days of age, when the yolk sac reserves are depleted, from starvation. This can be due to the inability of the chicks to find food or chicks who hatched too early. I’m not sure why chicks hatching too early causes them to die, but oh well.

The second “case” was ~6 day old chicks who were suddenly dying. Some of the chicks had normal blood sugar levels and some had low, so we tentatively diagnosed them as “hypo-glycemic syndrome”, which I can’t find in my books….i think it’s essentially that chicks that young have a high metabolic rate and any stressor can cause them to go off-feed for a bit—which can cause them to suddenly become hypoglycemic, causing death. The vet recommendation to the producer was to add vitamins to the water, and ensure at least 8 hours of darkness every day.

The third “case “ of the day was 13 day old chicks who did not have coccidiosis…haha…I can’t remember what was wrong with them…I don’t think we really found anything.

that's all for today....

Greetings from PA 2.8.09

2009-02-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, this is the first time I have traveled by myself! I flew from GB with a layover in Detroit to Philadelphia, rented a car, and drove to the middle of nowhere without a hitch—yay for me haha

“unfortunately” (hee hee) the only economy car the rental place had was a sebring convertible….i guess I’ll tough it out;)

Why am I in PA? I’m doing a commercial poultry rotation at the university of pennsylvania’s school of veterinary medicine (b/c they have a good program, I hear). Last year I applied for and received a stipend from the American association of avian pathologist, so luckily, I don’t have to pay for this trip. Oh, and I also got this rotation to count for a required rotation so it’s like I’m killing two birds with one stone…unfortunately, I’ll be killing many birds on this trip (which you’ll read about later) .

At UPenn, the large animal hospital is ~45 min outside of Philadelphia (away from the main campus) in the middle of nowhere. The students stay in the dorms built for them, as am I. I’m rooming with a UPenn student, who is very nice.

I’m going to try to keep a detailed log of this trip for my own sanity (I have a feeling it’s going to be emotionally taxing) and for some friends who are interested in the details.

AHHHHHHHHH!!

2009-02-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

I PASSED BOARDS!!!

yay:)

now i just need to pass all my rotations;)
CHEERS!

i'm actually learning useful medicine

2009-01-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

aside from wildlife, most of my learning this year comes from doing rotations in the school's veterinary hospital which is really a referral center. If your pet needs a complicated surgery, needs chemotherapy, has a disease your vet can't figure out, etc your vet will refer you here to see specialists. Because of that, most of what we see our fourth year is not what we'd see in private practice. It's fun, but not always useful.

Right now, I'm on the "primary care" rotation which is structured just like a private practice--which means i'm learning useful things. I've only ever worked in an emergency practice, so i know nothing about vaccines, deworming, and other common problems. It's not as exciting as emergency, but if i ever have to work in a private practice with cats and dogs (which i will probably be forced to:( ) i should be set:)

in the meantime, i'll hear if i passed/failed boards in a few weeks (EEK!) and will hear in march if i got or didn't get one of the two positions i applied for (double EEK!). Take care!

:(

2009-01-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

I didn't get the wildlife internship i wanted, and thought i was going to get:( I came in second *sigh* talking with the internship people, it sounds like they picked him over me only because he has been working in a small animal practice for a year...which doesn't make sense to me because it's a completely different set of skills--but whatever. it's done.

I'm very disappointed:(

so now i've "ranked" two clinics on the "match" program. THe match program is this weird, complicated sort of luck-of-the-draw system that "matches" people up with residency and internship programs.

The clinics and the vets "rank" in order what clinics/vets they would be willing to go to or hire. Then the magic happens and vets may or may NOT get matched with clinics on their list. The catch is IF you get matched, you are committed to that clinic for the year (internship) or 3-4 years (residency).

I've only ranked two clinics i'd be willing to go to, mostly because i only had time to visit those two and know i'd like to work there. The one i really hope to get is an avian/exotics internship in a private practice.

so until march!

about time...

2008-12-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

sorry (again) for taking such an incredibly long time to update! eek!

Well I passed large animal medicine (which I was expecting--i didn't like the rotation, but there was no reason for me to fail), I passed large animal surgery, have finished radiology and am now on dermatology...OI!!

Large animal surgery: another sucky rotation, but the clinicians, residents and technicians were nice so i survived. I also got to do a lot of cool things like castrate two horses, extract a horse tooth, participate in a horse colic surgery (open abdomen!), and ultrasound a horse fetus:)
We also saw some weird stuff, like this goat that came to the large animal surgery service...the owners had rescued this goat from it's previous owners who were going through a messy divorce....apparently, the goats rear legs and ears had frozen off at some point.

The owners wanted prosthetics for him.....hahahha....there are a few companies that have made prosthetics for goats though...so we took pictures and sent them to those companies...we tried fitting him in this dog wheel chair you see in the pictures, but he didn't like it, and he got around fine without it...he would balance on his front legs and walk around--seriously! how crazy...

Next was radiology, a super-easy, laid back rotation...just what i needed after a month doing large animal with crazy on calls!
Radiology was fun....here is a radiograph of a tortoise...

I also got to go home for xmas eve, xmas...then came back to school because the clinic was open that friday, but drove back to GB friday night and spent the weekend at home...mother nature was super nice and not only made the roads driveable on every trip, but the snowmobiling conditions were PERFECT!!! here's me on my sled:)

now i am on Dermatology, which is also a pretty laid back rotation:) I'm learning a lot and relaxing--all good things:)

Let's pretend it is veteran's day week...then boards...now hell...

2008-11-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

I'm really bad at keeping up on these posts so let's do a bunch at once....

First!
Veteran's day week! yay! well, i guess i'm not really that excited but there was a very cool display out near my house for the whole week...i almost teared up every time i drove by....

So I live near a HUGE cemetery and during that week, the Veteran's for Peace group set up this display along the road in the cemetery that was essentially a mini gravestone for every solider that has died since we entered this god-forsaken "war"

It was called the "memorial mile"

There was a sign between each year and each location (afghanistan and iraq)

Here you can see the graveyard in the back

they even put a little wisconsin flag on every gravestone that was for someone who was from wisconsin that died:(

and it went on all the way down the road for almost a mile

Pretty moving....

Anyway, my next rotation after therio was VACATION....to study:( sounded awesome but it was soooooooo exhausting....i woudl get up early in teh morning, either sit down at my desk or go to the library and try to put in 12 hours of studying a day for boards.

oh yeah--boards. that's why i was torturing myself--but what is boards you ask.

The veterinary boards exam is the big exam all fourth year vet students have to take and pass. it's one (of the many) requirements we need to get our license. this exam is intimidating though....a 6 hour exam of 360 multiple choice questions covering everything we've ever learned (and more). it is a very scary exam.

so after 2 weeks of studying i took it...and i truely feel like i failed...which means i would have to re-take it in teh spring...*sigh* we'll see...i'm not sure anyone feels like they passed, but i only knew 40% of the answers, so i guess we'll see how good of a guesser i am.

oh, i find out if i passed in february...so at least i have a few months of not studying...

so after vacation/studying, boards, I am now on Large Animal Medicine rotation. which is pretty much just hell. i did get to play with a baby goat yesterday, so that was fun. but that's about it. it's very horrible. Why is it hell? torturing animals. i hate it. last wed we had a dairy cow come in "down" (couldn't stand). after some radiographs we saw she had a broken femur (leg bone) and dislocated hip on the other side. Bone pain is extremely painful and a dislocated hip is likewise painful. However, her owners wanted her genetics so they chose to keep her alive for a week with us so they could flush her embryos before euthanizing her (they had bred her the day before she went down)

so this whole last week we had this broken cow in the hospital---just keeping it alive so we could kill it. and she was in horrible pain. We did the best we could to keep her pain to a miminum. We put an epidural catheter in so we could administer pain medication directly to her lumbar spinal cord, gave her NSAIDS, and slung her in a float tank (like a huge bath tub that cows can float in--this cow did love her float tank) but you could tell she was still in pain, and to me it's incredibly unethical to torture an animal for a week so you can get 1 embryo out of her. that's all we got out of her today before we euthanized her. and it will probably not be viable b/c she's been stressed out for a week.

I shouldn't be so judgemental b/c i drink the milk and eat the cheese that comes from dairy cows. i should be vegan.

but anyway, i'll stop my ranting and get on to better things like thanksgiving!! yay!! i get to come home, at least for the day:) back to work on friday.

Here is a nice happy picture of a cute animal so i end on a positive note:)

2008-11-06T13:49:00.001-08:00

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14507.cfm

thank god it's over

2008-11-02T14:29:00.000-08:00

Today marks my last day of Therio! yay!

I was on with three good friends of mine so that made it bearable and full of laughs:)

One day, we were at a dairy farm palpating what felt like a billion dairy cows, when this tour group of Algerian business people came walking through the barn. So here I am, armpit deep in cow butt, covered in manure, when a man asks me, "are you inseminating?". I politely answer "No, I'm rectally palpating to determine her stage of cycle". Oh, I can be professional--and you doubted!

These Algerians were constantly shapping pictures and taking video of us. I wonder what newspaper or TV show is showing me in Algeria. We laughed for a good 20 minutes after they left.

oh, but the day got even better!

We went to culver's for lunch where there was a big to-do about them lying to us vegetarians about the meat products in their food. The short version is that the culver's corporation states on their allergen pamphlet that none of their food is certified vegetarian and all may contain trace amounts of animal products. So not only did several employees argue with us that the potato au gratin soup was vegetarian (it's not...it has fish and pork in it) but they shouldn't ever use the word "vegetarian" b/c the corporation has that disclaimer. This was a serious problem for me as a vegetarian and could have been a lot worse--if i was jewish i'd be morally outraged and if i was allergic to fish--i'd be in the hospital!

anyway--i wrote a letter to the culver's corp asking to get it in their training protocol so more serious situations don't arise. i got a letter of apology back so i was satisfied. the funny thing was, in the letter they included gift certificates for free food baskets at culvers......hmmm...i wonder if they even read my letter or maybe they're getting their kicks by giving non-vegetarian food to a vegetarian, "good luck eating this!". haha, whatever.

And finally, this friday we went out to a dairy goat farm to do a herd evaluation which was pretty fun. Essentially we got a tour of the farm and ultra sounded a ton of goats to see who was pregnant. Goats are awesome animals--they are so curious and hearty. The picture at the top is me standing next to a goat in the milking parlor. Goats go up ramps so when they are being milked (from behind) the milker doesn't have to stoop. This picture adequately represents the part of the animal we were concerned with on this rotation, although slightly obscured by the tail;)

Theriogenology

2008-10-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

I am on my next rotation: theriogenology, or in laymans terms, how to make things reproduce as fast as possible.

ok, maybe that's a biased view, but honestly I am morally opposed to 90% of the this rotation. It has been incredibly difficult for me to deal with--the first few days I was going from rage to tears inside--why am i on this rotation?!?! dear god?!?!

because it's required. Funny thing, our clinician said this rotation is required so we gain skills (mainly cattle palpation skills) for ambulatory--another required rotation where we ride around with a large animal vet. But i have set up a different ambulatory rotation in commercial poultry medicine. When i told our clinician that he asked "then why are you here?"

that's the question i ask myself every day.

Earlier in the week we worked up two male german shepherds who were not producing sperm. As theriogenologist, our goal is to find out why they aren't producing sperm and fix them so they can breed again. my answer is NEUTER!!! there are too many animals dying in shelters every day--i honestly don't give a $&*% about breeders and would love to spay/neuter every one of their animals.

The rest of our time we spend doing large animal stuff. mainly cattle palpations. "what is cattle palpation?" you may ask. Palpating cattle is where you stick your arm up a cows rectum (what i'm doing in the picture at the top) and find the ovaries to find out what stage of estrous or pregnancy they are in. It's a routine practice done on every single dairy cow and makes me want to become vegan. Cows tolerate it ,but they don't like it.

*sigh* i'm now in my defeated-tolerating stage and am trying to focus on the few cases we talk about that involve an actually sick animal. Trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel; meanwhile i'm forced to molest cows so i can get my license......

Necropsy!

2008-10-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

So now i'm back from the emergency center. It was a good rotation over all. I learned some things and got to meet a bunch of people. I also got to work with the only avian specialist in the state so that was awesome! The only downside is that it's mostly interns and residents, so I didn't get to do as many things as I did at the first center--because they're all learned too.

Now I'm back at school and on necropsy rotation. A necropsy is like an autopsy, but on animals. It's not something I get very excited about, and I wasn't enthused going into this rotation, but I did get to do a necropsy on a cockatiel and a whooping crane this week--so that was awesome!! I also helped with a cow necropsy and did most of a horse necropsy by myself! It's morbidly festive! haha It's kind of a rough adjustment--as students were used to being very careful when having an animal open for a surgery--delicate tissue handling, taking your time, etc. But here, it's all SLASH and RIP! literally! I had no idea was i was cutting but the clinicians kept telling me to keep going! Big knife in hand, horse leg up in the air, i'm hacking off the leg, ripping into the abdominal cavity, slicing up the spleen and digging out the brain.

At least this rotation is appropriate for the season;)

surreal

2008-10-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

The other day at the emergency center a dog came in with a pretty much pathognomonic posture called schiff-sherrington. He was recumbent (laying down) with his front legs stiff in an extended position and his hind legs were limp with flaccid paralysis. Essentially it means he has a spinal cord lesion where the thoracic vertebra meets the lumbar vertebrae--midback. As we talked to the owner and got set up for radiographs to diagnose it, we watched his signs get more severe--his legs got more stiff, he lost all reflexes in his hind limbs and his head started to bend backwards in what's called opisthotonus, another sign of schiff-sherrinton. We radiographed him and sure enough, his vertebrae had fractured right at the thoracic-lumbar junction, almost completely severing his spinal cord.

The surreal part was that I had studied schiff-sherrington the night before. It was almost creepy.

There is no treatment (not even palliative) for schiff-sherrington, so the dog was humanely euthanized. The owners were distraught--they had no idea how this had happened--the dog was outside on a line and the owners had gone inside for a few minutes only to return and find him like this. Sad story:(

OREOS!

2008-10-08T09:16:00.001-07:00

just break complicated topics down into terms of food or beer and i understand

http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/

stupid war....

missing post...

2008-09-17T15:14:00.001-07:00

Sorry, this one was supposed to go after the last wildlife post but before the emergency post.....

9.12.08

I’m sad to leave the wildlife clinic I’ve had a BLAST the entire time and loved every minute of the long hours. Besides learning a lot and enjoying myself, I’m glad I came out here because it solidified my desire to go into wildlife medicine. I definitely want to be a wildlife rehabilitation veterinarian. Now the only standing in my path is the shortage of jobs (less than a dozen full-time wildlife vets in the country…..it’s going to be a waiting game). But I’m going to apply to a couple wildlife medicine internships and a couple exotics/small animal practices and maybe some emergency practices for back-up. I’m crossing my fingers I get one I want!!!

The last two weeks I was back at the vet school on the small animal internal medicine rotation. I had some great cases and some sad cases. Since it’s a vet school (ie well-known referral center) we see extremes; I learned enough but the pace was a bit slow—or rather less efficient than I was used to. But it was a good rotation. I saw some sad cancer cases, some good immune-mediated disease cases that we were able to treat and some cases we never figured out. Good learning lessons.

So now I’m at a small animal emergency center. It is great! Everyone here is incredibly helpful and nice. Last shift, I got to place some intravenous catheters, watch a splenectomy surgery (taking the spleen out of a dog who had hemangiosarcoma), and suture up a wound by myself. Good times

Well I’ve got a long weekend of work ahead of me so I better get some sleep

emergency medicine!

2008-09-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

So right now i'm at an emergency/referral vet practice near milwaukee. This place is awesome!! the staff is helpful, the vets are great teachers, and i'm not only learning a ton but getting to do a lot of hands on stuff.

The techs have been great in letting me draw blood and place catheters, and teaching me how to improve my techniques. I've gotten to watch several surgeries including a splenectomy, liver lobectomy, and foreign body removal. I've sutured up a laceration by myself and fixed up two anal gland abscesses. I've also learned about disc disease, severe rodenticide toxicity, other toxicities, seen a lot of CPR, and a ton of other stuff. The hours are great at this place and allow me to be there during the busiest times of the day.

In a week i go to another practice where the hours are not very good and i hear it's just a step down from this place--but as long as i learn, i'll have a blast:)

yay for emergency medicine!

to counteract my rant---something that makes me happy:)

2008-09-15T09:21:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting here in panera studying when a 45-50year old man starts talking to a 60 year old man about how feedlot beef cattle and other industrial meat animals have the shaft. Feedlot lot beef cattle are fed a diet of pretty much pure corn and antibiotics. Feeding cattle pure corn produces stomach ulcers in cattle. These stomach ulcers are extremely painful and allow bacteria into the animals' bloodstream which can cause a miriad of problems and ultimately death. The antibiotics, labeled "growth promotants" are needed to counteract the ulcers to allow the cattle to live long enough to slaughter. If the cattle were allowed to live longer, the antibiotics wouldn't be able to last that long and the cattle would die of rumenal ulcers. The reason cattle are fed a diet of pure corn is to get them to grow faster so they can go to slaughter faster....less time spent raising the cattle means more money for the feedlot owner.

anyway--i'm sitting listening to this conversation in the conservative city of milwaukee and it makes me happy to hear that people are thinking:)

if this is news to you, here is a good, reliable link to read about it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/industrial/

the last bit of tufts wildlife center:(

2008-09-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

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Here is me in the ocean in Massachusetts:) yay!

So updates on some of the animals in my last blog: the painted turtle with the hook through it’s head and the broadwing hawk with the broken wing were released! Woo hoo!!

I just realized I didn’t talk about the broad-wing hawk. Well, here he is.

He came in as a juvenile with a broken humerus. We placed an intramedullary pin and external fixature which was taken off two weeks later. We needed him to heal fast and perfectly because he needs to migrate to south America (right about now!). He healed great , was reconditioned and released! Yay!!

Here are some more animals…

This snapping turtle (40+lb male!) came in with lower jaw fractures and a shell fracture. A couple days before I left I got to help wire his jaw back together and clean/wire the shell fracture. He was doing well when I left.

This great-black backed gull had swallowed a fishing hook—it was a really really big one! I assisted the wildlife medicine intern during surgery. We had to go into the bird’s stomach to get the hook out. It’s a lot harder than in a cat or dog. Birds don’t have an abdomen and thorax (chest cavity) like mammals do. They have one cavity called their coelom. This is because they don’t have a diaphragm—they

have thin airsacs that pump air in and out of their lungs. These air sacs are thinner than cellophane wrap

and all over their coelom. So when we were cutting into the coelom, we had to cut through some of the air sacs---you could smell the gas anesthetic in the room—it’s a crazy surgery—very cool! He made

it through surgery and was doing great when I left!

Not sure how well this picture will come out but it’s a newly hatched snapping turtle!! He’s so cute!

This bird is an osprey. Osprey eat fish. And that’s it. They are also….umm…let’s say not the brightest. Sorry, that’s mean. They aren’t dumb—they are very set in their ways of eating fish in the wild. So in captivity—many simply don’t eat. When you get an osprey that doesn’t eat, you have to tube feed it which is stressful on all involved. I took on the osprey after it had been at the center for a week. He wouldn’t eat and was being tube fed. Then I took the case and he decided to start eating;) I think he just got sick of me grabbing him three times a day to feed—hee hee. They are really beautiful birds though.

And I have to end on the cutest picture ever…check out this squirrel with a splint on his broken leg!!! Awww!

a rant...i'm sorry

2008-09-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

I need to rant about this....i promise to catch up on my posts (including another one about the wildlife center) after this one--but I just need to post this.

I was working at an emergency center last night when some random person (i think who works there? i don't know who she is) made me want to explode.

A dog was anesthetized and getting prepped for bilateral (both knees) TPLO surgeries. TPLO is used to treat ligament tears in dogs' knees. It stands for tibial plateau leveling osteotomy---what they do is they cut off a chunk of the top of the tibia so the femur sits more nicely on it--so the torn ligament isn't needed---the knee will stay "together" because the tibia has been flattened.

So the dog is getting his lower back shaved for an epidural to control pain---because cutting off two chunks of bone is VERY painful!

The anesthetist is explaining that you don't need to clip this area super short--just get most of hte hair off--because teh hair on a dog's back can grow back slow--so they try to leave some there.

Then this random person starts getting into a heated discussion about how if it was her dog and the hair would grow back slow she wouldn't have the epidural done.

"you would refuse an epidural for your dog even if she was getting bilateral TLPOs?" asked a tech

"yeah--i can't bear to see that shaved spot on my dog for months" the random woman said.

"but what about pain? TPLOs are very very painful" said the tech again.

The random woman went on stubbornly about how she didn't care and would not let an epidural be done.

I'm new at this clinic so i forced myself to stay out of the conversation---it was one of the hardest things i've ever done.

WHAT THE H(#*?!?! You are refusing pain management for your dog who is having an extremely painful surgery done because you wouldn't like his haircut? I can't think of a more selfish and ridiculous thing. I consider that inhumane, neglegent and if i was a judge i would slap her with a fine for animal cruelty. If i was the surgeon i would refuse to cut her dog. period. i just can't understand this kind of thinking---

all you have to do is put yourself in the dog's shoes---would you want to have bones cut off (and bone pain, i'm told, is horrible) with only 50% of the pain management?

i could go on and on but i better stop and do something productive---i need to get rid of this anger.

Wildlife Clinic!

2008-08-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

August 16, 2008

Wow---I can’t believe I’m almost done here at the wildlife clinic! The first week I didn’t feel so busy but after that I just haven’t had any time to write anything down. But it’s simply amazing and I’m having a great time out hereJ Here are a few of the cases I’ve had (just a few…there are too many…)

This adult female painted turtle came in with a hook going up into it’s upper jaw and through its eye socket. We thought the hook was going through the eyeball so we prepared to take out the eye—but when we got to the hook out, the eyeball seemed intact! We left the eye in and are treating it with antibiotics. The swelling has gone down and next week we’ll sedate her to get a better look at the eye to see if she can still see out of it.

This loon came in having been grounded (loons should pretty much always be on the water) and thin. Her leg band had slid over her foot, causing a wound, but no other trauma or reason for her to be so thin. After a week and a half, she hadn’t gained much weight and she was still anemic. Loons are especially susceptible to a fungus called aspergillosis and once they have it, they can’t get rid of it. Since we couldn’t find any other reason for her to be so thin, we went looking for aspergillosis. Asper likes to live in the lungs and air sac walls. We scoped the loon (put a camera into her body cavity) and found fungal plaques on her air sacs. Since she’ll never get rid of it, if released she would probably die of starvation and eventually respiratory distress. Sadly, she had to be euthanized.

This salamander is from a local zoo. It has a mass around it’s eye. We anesthetized her and took a biopsy. Hopefully we’ll know soon what this mass is.

I don’t have pictures, but we’ve also went to surgery to repair a broadwing hawk humerus and a red-tail hawk ulna, went to surgery to remove hooks from the stomachs of another painted turtle and a black-backed gull. I’ll try to get pictures up soon.

Take care back in the Midwest! I’ll post soon again!

Off to MA!

2008-08-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry this entry is a little late--let's just pretend it's July 27th;)

Leaving The Wilds was sad, but getting back into wildlife rehab is going to be amazing!! I'm so excited!

I left Cumberland, OH at 7am saturday morning. I didn't stop to sight see, but i did stop often to walk around get a snack. Here are a couple of the more interesting signs i saw:

a) peace, love and bbq??? last time i checked, bbq contained slaughtered pig, which isn't exactly all about peace and love....ha
b) bbq is good....good thing they put it on the sign or i would have driven right by thinking bbq was bad.
c) there is a special place in my rage box just for cannibalistic marketing ploys. idiots.

so that was fun.

Later, i drove by one of those "road-side" zoos that are usually horrible, horrible places for animals to live. This one had a good outer appearance, but i was curious as to how horrible the living conditions were. I asked "Can i ask where you get your animals from?" She replies, "oh they've had a lot for a long time; i think they get a bunch from auctions and sales."
I can almost guarantee now that the enclosures are too small, the animals malnourished, and that there is no enrichment for the animals. But they wouldn't let me in with out paying $8, which is bs. So i grabbed a brochure with a revengeful look on my face. "Ha! That's $1.50 you'll never be seeing again!" take that stupid unregulated road-side zoo of misery.

As I drove through New York, I saw this sign and almost died:

Oh no, your glasses aren't dirty, you aren't having a dream and you are not intoxicated. New York has somehow known about me my whole life! A deli in my honor! The only problem is when i went inside, a beer-belly man with sweaty pits was manning the deli which was only a counter in a gas station and they didn't sell t-shirts. oh well; i guess everyday can't be "nay day".

And so, After 13 hours of driving I arrive in Grafton, MA. Not too exhausted, and very ready to get back into wildlife medicine!

2008-07-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

July 25, 2008

Last day:(

Today is my last day at The Wilds. I am sad:( ; this facility is amazing, the animals are incredible (and managed on pasture like they should be) and the people are completely awesome. Everyone here has been so nice and incredibly helpful. I’ve learned so much during my time here and enjoyed every personal interaction I’ve had.

Today is my last day—and what an amazing day it was! There wasn’t much planned—but that quickly changed (just like every Friday;) ) In the morning, there was a bison that had had rotting membranes sticking out of her hind end for a day now; she either had aborted and now had a retained placenta or was a dystocia. If it was just retained membranes, we would probably just dart her with some oxytocin and possibly tetracycline. If it was a dystocia, we would have to immobilize (anesthetize her in the field) her and pull the calf. It was decided to immobilize her in the field so we could palpate her and tell for sure which it was, treat her accordingly, and be done for the weekend (also a good learning experience, the vet argued;).

So at 10am we took two trucks full of supplies out to the field where the herd of ~50 bison resided. We threw grain and hay down in the field to keep the bison occupied. Then I followed an Animal Management staff person out into the middle of the herd on foot (yes--walking in the middle of dozens of two ton bison!) and I darted the female with anesthetic drugs; it was a surreal experience!

After getting darted, the female took off running over the field and down a hill. We took th

e trucks and found her thrashing in the tall thistle (ouch!). The animal management staff tied her back feet and sat on her head while the vet gave her more anesthetic drugs. After palpation, we realized she had aborted and only had retained placenta. We gave her oxytocin (to help expel the rotting placenta), an antibiotic and a non-

steroidal anti-inflammatory. We then gave her a drug that reversed the anesthetic drugs and she was on her feet in less than 2 minutes.

Field immobilizations are sooo much fun:)

For lunch, the vet staff took me to the restaurant at the wilds and treated me to lunch (yayJ ) and then surprised me with going away gifts---I felt so special! Among the awesome and extremely thoughtful gifts was a small stuffed Takin which they had sewn the eye shut on (like the Takin eyeball we had taken out the week before!). how cool?!?! The stuffed takin (name Alcatraz) is now my traveling companion and is sitting looking out the front window of my car.

After lunch, we all hopped in the truck to give the giraffe dewormer. We cut a bunch of “browse” (branches trees that the giraffe love to eat the leaves and bark of) and brought it to the giraffe pasture. They don’t have much browse in their enclosure so they all eagerly came up to the truck and started eating. Then we could take a large syringe full of dewormer and squirt it on their backs. The dewormer gets absorbed through their skin and kills any internal and external parasites the giraffe might have. To have enourmously tall giraffes towering over you and practically eating out of your hand is again—a surreal experience!!

I then went back to the clinic, finished the project I’ve been working on for the last few weeks, said almost emotional goodbyes to everyone, exchanged email addresses and did not cry as I left the The Wilds.

What an amazing day:)

Off to MA!