Wednesday 26 December 2007
Friday 21 December 2007
C-c-c-clinical extra mural studies (is c-c-c-cold!!)
In and amongst the usual calls, there was an emergency call out to a cow, which was having trouble giving birth. She was quite a small cow, with quite a big calf, so after a bit of manipulation and pulling it was clear the calf just wasn't going to get through the regular back route. We therefore approached from the side, and to cut a long story short we got the calf out happy and healthy and the mother stitched up and a lot skinnier than she was when we started!
It was a very interesting case, having never done calving or seen a caeser. I got to cut the calf out of the uterus, so I did a good job of midwife for a bit.
Apart from that, i have had a lot of horse visits, everything from more boys' bits to very sore feet. All good stuff but by george it's bloomin' freezing! Thank goodness for the Great British cup of tea :-)
Friday 16 November 2007
A stitch in time...
Saturday 10 November 2007
The gloves are off (and then on again)
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Happy Halloween!
A great night of fancy dress, fun food, pumpkin making (isn't he beautiful! I made him all by myself, and yes, he does just have one eyebrow) and ducking for apples.
Do you like the hat?...
Wednesday 10 October 2007
And that's a wrap!
An hour and a half of wrapping poor wee doggies up in lots of cotten wool, and bandages to create a supportive work of art.
The dog to the left is Angus and that big blue thing is my first bandage. (No, he's not dead or even sedated-He's a vet student's dream!). Hoorah. Angus is one of the nurse's dogs and clearly is bored with the whole event, whilst also enjoying the fuss and cheeky biscuits. He's a nine year old springer spanial and has been one of the student's subjects since he was a pup. I'm sure if only they could talk, I'm sure he could tell me exactly what to do step by step!
Here he is post-bandaging: still a happy chappy.
This here is scruff. I think the girls had the good deal here-not only their first bandage, but the smallest I reckon!
Now all that's left to do is re-roll out bandages and take them home to attack an unsuspecting flatmate or partner. Watch out!
Wednesday 12 September 2007
Bike Origami
Tuesday 21 August 2007
A GIANT snail!
Thursday 16 August 2007
What's the marra with the angel like? It's al reet...
Wednesday 18 July 2007
Horsing around in the borders
I had a great day off all in all: What with jam-making, horse/foal visiting, rabbit playing (featuring Benny the Bunny), cups of tea with the family and general horse play it was a very successful day off. Thanks Aunty Diane!
Sunday 15 July 2007
CSI vet!
So, I'm back at uni working in the pathology department on a short project. This included student input on some issues, scanning extremely old slides so they can be used on the computer, re-sizing lots of photos for online teaching, taking photographs at post mortems throughout the week and then creating case files for them and others so they can be used for teaching and online resources. Phew! It's been quite a varied, educational busy week but I've learnt quite a lot and have enjoyed it. Back to Boots next week!
Friday 13 July 2007
Baby slimer
A picture will follow shortly-watch this space (I can tell you're all on the edge of your seats...) but for now, here's what he could look like....
Sunday 8 July 2007
Thursday 5 July 2007
Penguins on parade
Bella!
It was a bit bizarre at first-at 8am on the Monday morning I was wandering through the deserted zoo, past the polar bear and up next to the Bongos as the animals wander with only the sounds of other animals on a summer morning. I did eventually find the keepers and was assigned a funky uniform and large pair of boots and given the tour of the reptile departments and surrounding areas. unfortunately, the reptile house at Edinburgh zoo is no more as there is a huge new project in progress to build an enormous chimp-house, bird enclosure and primate research centre. All this is very good news, but also means that most of the exotics are 'off show' and are wasted being hidden away in dispersed buildings.
The highlight of my week, although not exactly a small mammal or reptile, was the department's duty on the penguin parade. For those of you not familiar with the brilliance of the penguin parade, at 2.15 every day of the year, the door of the penguin enclosure is opened to allow any keen penguins to come out for a short walk around the grassy section in front of the enclosure. My role in this was to stop the Gentoo penguins getting too fast, eating anything they shouldn't or letting people touch them. It was all very exciting, especially as one of the penguins decided the usual route was a bit boring and tried to take a bit of a short-cut onto the grass. Twice.
It was a great end to my 12 weeks and it was good to see behind the scenes at the zoo. I would definitely recommend a visit, especially to the penguins!
Sunday 1 July 2007
We're all off to sunny Wales! (Well it was sunny until Tuesday...)
We had a great time here too- the stockman were all friendly, and were all surprised at how 'normal' Beth looked! (she had a few mental hair styles in her younger days I believe...). We did lots of milking, herding, quad-biking (vrooooommm), feeding, watering, mucking out, training calves to drink milk from buckets (awww) and even did the milk recording one day. This involved taking a sample of milk from every single cow there and recording it's number on a sheet with the amount of milk each produced in the morning and afternoon, as well as the number on the sample bottle. It was a task and a half, and it took us a while to settle into it. Soon we had a good rhythm, and a few hours later we had the lot in the can. After that we had to sort them all into numerical order (thanks to Anne for the use of her giant table). I do have a picture of the lines of bottle somewhere. Quite satisfying when it was all done.
(Anyone noticed Beth's hair's flopped?!)
Apart from the cows I also learnt a bit of welsh. On the taps in Anne and Ray's house, the sink taps were marked poeth and oer (Hot and cold for you non-welsh folk). I think that was about the extent of my welsh-ness. Thanks to Anne and Ray for having me too, I had a great time. I'll try and work on the geordie accent for next time!
Pigs, pigs, pigs (smell)
Friday 25 May 2007
Friday 11 May 2007
Feeling a Little Faint
There is a breed of goat called 'fainting goats' that just run along as normal, but then if they get a fright, they just fall over, or 'faint'. Sounds a little crazy? What's even more crazy is the 'International Fainting Goat Association', which actually breed goats with this brain defect, as they want to preserve this breed of goat.
What the goats actually have is mytonia. This is means that the ion channels in their muscles are not working correctly, so that when they are startled for example, their muscles contract too much and they 'faint'. Once they fall over stiffened, they get back up after about 10-15 seconds and walk away with slightly stiff legs. All very strange. If you want to know more, the website for the international association is: www.faintinggoat.com and there's a wee clip here: http://www.rfaintingfarm.com/goat.mpeg
Tuesday 8 May 2007
The Results Are In...
Monday 7 May 2007
What are we going to do today brain?
Anyway, to begin and end this wee course, we were shown a nice little cartoon of 'Pinky and The Brain'. As well as being a very funny cartoon about two mice trying to take over the world, they have aparently provided us with an educational section. All singing, all dancing. You should be able to find it at the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li5nMsXg1Lk
Be warned though, the tune WILL get stuck in your brain!
Thursday 3 May 2007
Five out of Five. I passed!
Wednesday 2 May 2007
Apparently an Even More Interesting Fact....
Saturday 28 April 2007
Having a ball!
Thursday 26 April 2007
An iguana? With three legs? I didn't see that coming.
Thursday 19 April 2007
Anybody thirsty? An Interesing Fact:
As I plough through lectures from the nutritional content of grass to how to tell boy chinchillas from girl chinchillas, I often come across an interesting fact or two. Today I learnt that a dairy cow can produce 40 litres of milk per DAY in her peak. That's a lot of milk! Even I, in my heightened state of revision tea-drinking, would have difficultly consuming enough to keep up with that output. Mmm... Tea....