Apologies for the delays in posts-
Life got pretty hectic, pretty fast.
By now, all my placements are complete and the little journal of science has been massively abused by my pen. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every day, with credit being due to all the staff for allowing me access to their workplace and putting up with me, special credit to the on-call vets for saving my ass when I was stood around the practice during the quieter periods, too!
So, first up was the fantastic week at a lovely Wild Boar park. Not much clinical experience was gained here, but when you're grumpy in the mornings you might as well throw some raccoons, meerkats, donkeys, alpacas and a sassy llama in- It really brightens the day.
The majority of my time was split two-fold. The first half of the day was dedicated to setting the place up for guests and then supervising handling of the animals and educating the guests on them. Questions like "What's the difference between a guinea pig and a rabbit" and "How do you know that rabbit is a lady and not a man" were tough to answer, especially when the oh-so-brilliant sarcastic responses are the first to come to mind.. It may also surprise you to know that one of those two questions came from a parent.
Now the second half of the day was a little less glamorous- Park maintenance. I really didn't mind the painting and general cleaning up though, does that make me weird? The way I saw it, I was saving the real keepers some time and allowing them to have a little extra time to put towards caring for the animals and educating the public on them, or at least that's what I told myself as the sweeping of paths forced sweat beads from my forehead.
What very little clinical experience I had was involving the donkeys and the Alpaca.
In regards to the donkey, the case came about from a rather aggressive mate (remember, abusive relationships need not be tolerated, kids!). Our sweet little female donkey had sustained a rather nasty wound on her derriere and right flank. A rather simple treatment of terramycin, insect repellent and iodine spray was undertaken. The wound was managed well, and by the time of my leaving she was scabbed over nicely and well on her way to recovery, after being removed from the company of her mate and being placed with the rather friendly fallow deer and alpaca!
Now, onto the Alpaca. This was a little more of a tricky issue as an abscess had built up on the most caudal part of the neck trunk, which had then burst (unbeknownst to the keepers, due to the sheer amount of fluff and minimal palpation of that region of the animal). Upon bursting, flies had nested in and laid eggs and by the time the issue had been spotted (A shitstorm of flies attacking an alpaca was pretty suspicious) a severe wound had developed. Treatment involved local anaesthetic of the area, along with manual removal of some dead tissue and the flies/eggs. A healthy dose of insect repellent and terramycin was then coated on to prevent (further) infection and assault from the nasties. Again, upon my departure, the wound was nicely healed over with no more bug attacks and a happy Alpaca was the result of a rather tricky "capture and fix" maneuver conducted......
The week was fantastic, the people were sarcastic and friendly (the best kind) and I genuinely miss the place- Hours were long, but c'mon- who wouldn't work 10 hours if it partly involved sitting amongst some hay bails with baby rabbits and lambs?
Hoping your day is going well,
The Student Rambler.
@_DavidjWalsh
Life got pretty hectic, pretty fast.
By now, all my placements are complete and the little journal of science has been massively abused by my pen. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every day, with credit being due to all the staff for allowing me access to their workplace and putting up with me, special credit to the on-call vets for saving my ass when I was stood around the practice during the quieter periods, too!
So, first up was the fantastic week at a lovely Wild Boar park. Not much clinical experience was gained here, but when you're grumpy in the mornings you might as well throw some raccoons, meerkats, donkeys, alpacas and a sassy llama in- It really brightens the day.
The majority of my time was split two-fold. The first half of the day was dedicated to setting the place up for guests and then supervising handling of the animals and educating the guests on them. Questions like "What's the difference between a guinea pig and a rabbit" and "How do you know that rabbit is a lady and not a man" were tough to answer, especially when the oh-so-brilliant sarcastic responses are the first to come to mind.. It may also surprise you to know that one of those two questions came from a parent.
Now the second half of the day was a little less glamorous- Park maintenance. I really didn't mind the painting and general cleaning up though, does that make me weird? The way I saw it, I was saving the real keepers some time and allowing them to have a little extra time to put towards caring for the animals and educating the public on them, or at least that's what I told myself as the sweeping of paths forced sweat beads from my forehead.
What very little clinical experience I had was involving the donkeys and the Alpaca.
In regards to the donkey, the case came about from a rather aggressive mate (remember, abusive relationships need not be tolerated, kids!). Our sweet little female donkey had sustained a rather nasty wound on her derriere and right flank. A rather simple treatment of terramycin, insect repellent and iodine spray was undertaken. The wound was managed well, and by the time of my leaving she was scabbed over nicely and well on her way to recovery, after being removed from the company of her mate and being placed with the rather friendly fallow deer and alpaca!
Now, onto the Alpaca. This was a little more of a tricky issue as an abscess had built up on the most caudal part of the neck trunk, which had then burst (unbeknownst to the keepers, due to the sheer amount of fluff and minimal palpation of that region of the animal). Upon bursting, flies had nested in and laid eggs and by the time the issue had been spotted (A shitstorm of flies attacking an alpaca was pretty suspicious) a severe wound had developed. Treatment involved local anaesthetic of the area, along with manual removal of some dead tissue and the flies/eggs. A healthy dose of insect repellent and terramycin was then coated on to prevent (further) infection and assault from the nasties. Again, upon my departure, the wound was nicely healed over with no more bug attacks and a happy Alpaca was the result of a rather tricky "capture and fix" maneuver conducted......
The week was fantastic, the people were sarcastic and friendly (the best kind) and I genuinely miss the place- Hours were long, but c'mon- who wouldn't work 10 hours if it partly involved sitting amongst some hay bails with baby rabbits and lambs?
Hoping your day is going well,
The Student Rambler.
@_DavidjWalsh
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