Ward 4

Monday January 24

New Vocab:
Rectal Prolapse: The abnormal protrusion of the rectal mucosa through the anal opening.
Trimming chute: A head gate used to restrain a cow, each leg can be lifted mechanically using ropes.

This week I have been interning in the Food Animal Medicine area, I have witnessed a lot of I never knew veterinarians dealt with. As always I seem to always start each different rotation with a very interesting experience (D). On my first day of interning in ward four I walked in to find one of the veterinarians dealing with a sheep who had a rectal prolapse. At first I thought the sheep would for sure die and had no idea why stuff that looked like ground raw meat mixed with blood was coming out of the rectal area nonstop, the initial sight of this made my stomach turn but I did get used to it (F). The doctor had a very unusual method, in order for the blood and rectal mucosa to stop falling out he would put a pile of sugar in his hand while gently shoving everything back in. He explained to me that a rectal prolapse could happen to various animals and that given time the animal will heal. To my surprise the sugar did the trick and he was able to stop the rectal mucosa (D).
After they were done with the sheep, there were four show cattle that were going to get their hooves trimmed. It was really amazing to see how they easily could trim the cow's hooves with their machine. They used a machine that was both a tilt table and a trimming chute. What I would do was put the cow in the machine which would tilt so the cow was on its side, then they would tie each leg to a side and use an electric sander (D). I asked the doctor how he knew how much to trim from the hooves, he told me that you have to trim until the cow can put its whole hoof on the ground for the bottom and the top he tries to make it a nice straight and smooth hoof. What he did to make sure that a hoof was trimed right on the bottom was use a piece of wood to see if the whole hoof touched the wood. It is very important to trim cattle's hooves because it helps prevent disease and lameness in cattle. I realize that there is so many useful techniques to learn from each individual doctor because they all have their different methods that do make tasks easier (A).