My first LDA Surgery!

The first herd check today was cancelled, but instead I got to see a federal veterinarian come and test a goat for a false positive TB test. The original TB test had caused a slight reaction, and thus Dr. C. reported it to the state. They then sent someone out to do further testing. They shaved two patches on the goat's neck, and took skin thickness measurements. One patch was injected with the Bovine strain of TB, and the other with the Avian. The Avian is not considered harmful to humans, and goats can still be shipped for export to other countries even if they carry it. It is the Bovine strain that is the problem. They will wait 72 hours and retest the thickness of the skin in the areas (essentially, how much swelling occurred). This gives them some comparison as to whether it is one strain or the other, or whether it is simply a reaction to the vehicle (which is much more likely since TB in goats is very rare, especially in a 6-month old who was born on the farm and has never been off). The veterinarian who did it is a retired dairy vet from Minnesota, and he was really interested in talking to me about the role of veterinarians on the state and federal level, and pointing out that there are job shortages, and also that VMRCVM is a really good school for going into regulatory medicine. It is certainly something to keep in consideration.

Our second call was for surgery! This was probably the most serious surgery I have seen yet, and especially in large animals, so I was really excited to see it. Dr. C. started out by numbing the back left stomach area (behind the rib cage) of the cow, and making an incision on her right side, about ten inches. All of this was of course done after clipping and scrubbing. He cut through to the abdominal area, and then stuck his arm inside her gut. I can't imagine how funny that felt for the cow! Anyway, since there is a negative pressure in the abdominal area, you could hear a WHOOSH of air when he exposed it, and the cow almost appeared to inflate slightly. He stuck a needle and tube in her abomasum to draw out the air, and then moved the stomach chamber back into place. He sutured it to the stomach wall to keep it from floating off again, and sewed her back up. The scrubbing took about half an hour, and the surgery about the same. If you are interested in seeing something similar, I found a good one on youtube. It's really funny because you can hear the farmer talking to his cows the entire time :P

Our last call for the day was just for a herd check, at a somewhat run-down farm. I saw one cow jump a gate and get it's back legs caught for about 10 minutes, and another scramble under a fence... It was interesting. Their cows were mostly pregnant as expected, with only 1/20 having a uterus problem needing meds. It had pyometria, or in layman's terms, pussy uterus. 

So now I'm back home again and starting to get the house cleaned up. I will be silent for about a week, since I am heading to Colorado to visit with my family out there. I will update with pics, etc. on my return! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and week.

~Melissa