These past two days have consisted of long, hard field work at the cattle farm. On Wednesday we visited a cattle farm, which had about 35 cows, including large and baby calf's, where we helped to administer medications. Dr. Eduardo tell us that cows have much thicker skin than horses or dogs, and so its much harder to give cows an injection. He tells us "You just have to stab them". He told us to use a technique called "Stab and release" where you stab the needle in them (hard enough to go in, but not hurt them) and then just let go, just in case the cow moves it wont hurt you or kick while you inject it.
That's alot of cows !
I'm pretty much a master at giving shots.
A little scary.. dont you think?
After that, we stopped by a horse farm and did some quick physicals on the horses. We checked their heart and respiration rates, and checked for any abnormalities. We weighed each horses and administered their medications.
We ended the day off by performing two spaying procedures on cats. For those who don't know what spaying is, it's basically the surgical removal of the reproductive organs. In females, it's the ovaries and uterus, and often called a ovariohysterectomy, or spay. I asked Dr. Eduardo what are some advantages for doing a spay, and he said that spaying will cause the animal to no longer feel the need to look for a mate, and therefore is less likely to contract a disease or get hit by a car, or have unwanted pregnancies. Unfortunately, each cat was pregnant already, so there was nothing else to do but continue with the procedure. ( I don't think I should post those pictures)
Today (thursday) we visited another cattle farm, except we were told that these cattle would be harder to work with than the ones we injected yesterday. Apparently these cows would be able to walk around freely, so we were told to be prepared in case we had to run, or climb up a tree. (So not a joke). We get there and the first thing we see is all the cows just wandering around, as if at any minute they would charge at us.
I don't know who was more scared.. them or us?
We got to administer medications to each one, but this time we also got to do castrations to the baby calf's. Poor babies tried to put up a fight, but one by one they went down. I thought it was crazy that the whole procedure was done without any anesthesia, poor calves!!! But apparently cows are more sturdy. Doing the castration made me realize this career is exactly for me. Never would I have imagined ever in my life to be able to castrate a cow. It's just an incredible experience that I got to live.
Hey there babies :)
My very first castration !!
Wow! You are superwoman!
ReplyDeleteI try I try :)
ReplyDeletehow didn't you were afraid to cuting both of his large testicles without any anesthsia ???
ReplyDeleteyou are wery brave woman....well done....