Finding Kanjoro and Quanza

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working hard to get to Africa, and the journey has led me somewhere that I never thought it would. When I first started researching Africa, I really didn't know more than what I had seen in the Lion King and other stereotypes. I liked African animals, and the mystique of their exoticism. I love leopards. I love leopard print. But I really didn't know much about them.

Since I have made the decision to study in Africa, I knew I had to educate myself more about the wildlife. First, I didn't want to look like an idiot in front of the wildlife vets in South Africa. I wanted to sound like I knew something about their job and Africa. And second, I was actually interested, I did want to know more about these animals, and there was an obvious gap in my education.

Somewhere along the way though I discovered something new and fell in love. I fell in love with the majestic African elephants and their story. It started when I read "Love, Life and Elephants" by Dame Daphne Sheldrick. I highly recommend that book to everyone, even if you don't have any special interest in elephants or Kenya. While reading this book, I began to see elephants in a brand new light.

Since finishing the book I have done a lot of additional research, and a lot of it has shocked and surprised me. I have learned that the average lifespan of the African elephant is 70 years, very close to ours. I have learned that their memory is better than ours is, that they remember things for life and use that memory to hold grudges. I have learned that elephants are very social animals; they love, they grieve, and they also get jealous and hold grudges. Their hippocampus, the area of the brain involved in emotion, is larger than ours.

I've learned that elephants make friends for life, that they will recognize an elephant they haven't seen in over 30 years and rush to meet them. I have learned that elephants are the only animals on Earth besides humans to hold funerals, that they will bury their dead with branches and hold a funeral procession. Everything about them suggests that their intelligence and emotions are on a level with ours.

But in doing my research, I have learned a lot of disheartening facts as well. At least 25,000 elephants were killed in 2011 for their ivory. Most of the ivory gets shipped to China, where the new wealthy middle class can afford ivory as a status symbol. And the scary part of it is that a recent poll found that as much as 70% of the Chinese population believed that their ivory came form elephants whose tusks just dropped off.  The lack of education is a dangerous fuel for the poaching fire.

Since realizing the depressing facts of the elephant poaching problem in Africa I have become a lot more interested in the movement to stop it. One of the most heartbreaking parts of the poaching problem is the orphan elephants that are left behind. Baby elephants are completely dependent on their mothers for at least 3 years, and have no hope of surviving in the wild without them. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust runs an orphanage in Kenya to take in these orphaned elephants. These baby elephants are usually found standing beside the body of their murdered mothers, sometimes having been there for several days. Once they arrive at the orphanage, they go through the same grieving process that we do. They become listless, refuse food, shun the company of the other orphans, and may act our aggressively. But at the orphanage they have a second chance, and most of them turn it around and eventually bond with their keeps, staying at the orphanage until they are old enough to be released back into the wild.

The story of the African elephant and their plight has now become my main objective, and where I am hoping I can make a difference. I have since decided to foster two of their baby elephants, Kanjoro and Quanza. Quanza came to the orphanage after her mother and two sisters were killed by poachers. She is a little over one year old. Kanjoro came to the orphanage after a Samburu scout found him and saw that he had been alone for several days. He is about a year and a half. Both of these elephants would have died for sure if left on their own in the wild.

One day I hope that I will be able to go to Kenya and visit my two fostered elephants, but until then I want to learn as much about their species as I can while I am in South Africa. The more I learn, the more I can do, and I will have a better position from which to help.

Quanza, right after arriving at the orphanage

Kanjoro

Kanjoro receiving one of three daily milk feedings

Kanjoro

Quanza settling in, and another orphan trying to sneak her second bottle

The orphaned elephants develop close bonds with their keepers

A crowd of orphans

Playing

Two new orphans settling in

If you can help an orphaned elephant, please visit the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Fostering Page here http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/fostering.asp

Fundraising Update

It has been a while since I've posted an update on how my fundraising for Africa has been going, so I thought I would do a quick recap.

So far I have done bake sales, a fundraising event at Ibiza, and Christmas pet photography. All together, with a couple of individual donations, I have raised about $1,000. I really appreciate all of the support that everyone has been giving me! I had a great time with the bake sales, and a really great time doing all of the pet photography! It never ceases to amaze me how generous people can be, and how they are willing to go so far above and beyond in helping with my cause.

       
                        



My next upcoming event is going to be a wine tasting at Zannotti's Wine Bar on January 10, in Stillwater. Besides the wine tasting we are also going to have a wine pool, raffle baskets, and a 50/50 raffle!




Here are some pictures from our pet photography shoots!

Equine Acupuncture

Yesterday was the Holistic Club’s first wetlab, which I am very happy to say went off without a hitch. Dr. Holyaok, the same professor I had for my equine therio class, is certified in equine acupuncture, and he gave us a quick lecture and demonstration in acupuncture before turning us loose on the mares in the barn.

First he showed us the one of the major meridians, the bladder line, which runs down the neck and back just lateral to the spine, and he ran a needle cap over the points to show us how the mares would involuntarily twitch when he ran the needle cap over certain specific acupuncture points. Then we divided up between the mares and performed this same pre-examination on our own mares. Our mare was very sensitive over a acupuncture point by her hip, which happens to correspond with the ovaries. This makes sense, since it is the fall transitional period for the mares as they enter their winter anestrus.

Next Dr. Holyoak showed us how to place a 3 inch acupuncture needle in one of the main points on the bladder line. I don’t remember what it is called (Ba Hoi, maybe?), but it sits right at the highest point on the back by the hips. He showed us how to find it, and you can actually find it better with your eyes closed because you can feel the acupuncture points. As you run your finger along the midline back to the tail, your finger actually falls into a little depression, which is the acupuncture point. Technically I guess Dr. Holyoak showed us how to insert the needle as well as find the point, but since he did it in about 2 seconds it really wasn’t too helpful for the rest of us, who were now told to insert needles into that point on our own mares.

Me inserting acupuncture needles into the kidney points.

We proceeded to put about 9 needles into each mare. The first one, then 3 kidney points on each side and one ovary point on each side. The hardest part of getting the acupuncture needle in was getting it through the skin- I think a lot of us were taken aback at having to insert the needles on our own so quickly, and we tapped them in too timidly. Then we had to try and push them down through the skin before sliding the needle in the rest of the way. I had it by about the third needle. 

The horses really seemed to enjoy getting acupuncture. Which each successive needle their heads dropped lower and their eyes slid closed until it looked like they were falling asleep. As we found each acupuncture point by the same method as the first, by feeling for the slight dip in the skin, we could always tell we were in the right spot because they mare would kind of twitch when we inserted the needle, the same way she did when we ran the needle cap over her in a test for sensitivity.

After we had all of the needles in, we hooked up the 3 kidney points for electroacupuncture. Electroacupuncture is very similar to the concept of STIM in people, in that you are sending an electrical impulse into the muscle. The only difference is with electroacupuncture that pulse is being guided directly into the acupuncture point. There have been multiple studies that show that using electroacupuncture over regular acupuncture provides greater pain relief for longer period of time. I did my senior seminar on using alternative therapies such as acupuncture to treat lameness in horses, so most of the studies I read revolved around treating back or other lameness-causing injuries in horses, but the electroacupuncture always had greater efficacy than acupuncture alone.

When using electroacupuncture, you always start out at zero and slowly turn the dial up until you can start to see the acupuncture needle actually start to twitch within the muscle. Horses will all have different tolerance levels, and out of the 5 we worked on only one thoroughbred mare reacted at all, when hers got turned up a little too high, and she was completely fine once it was turned down just one notch. We left those electroacupuncture probes on for about 20 minutes, and we turned them up a little about halfway through. I believe that is a pretty standard treatment time, which is another advantage electroacupuncture has over regular acupuncture- it provides better results in a faster time.

While our electroacupuncture was running we turned to the ovary points, which we planned to treat with moxie. I’ve heard mixed results on moxie, and I don’t know as much about it. But we stabbed some aluminum foil over the needle to lay over the horse to catch any falling moxie ashes, and then stuck the little moxie cap on top of the needle. Moxie is made up of herbs, and I believe that it is used to bring heat into the acupuncture point. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, everything is about the balance between yin and yang, feminine and masculine, cold and hot, wet and dry, and so on. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, if it is determined that there is too much yin and you are out of balance, then the treatment is literally to bring yang back in and balance out your qi. I am starting my acupuncture course tonight actually, so hopefully later I will be able to explain this all better. But we stuck these moxie caps on the acupuncture needles, lit them on fire and just let them burn out. The horses didn’t mind at all.

The moxie cap on the ovary acupuncture point

The moxie burning

Electroacupuncture and moxie.

While we were waiting for these treatments to finish, we all got a hold of some smaller needles and practiced acupuncture on ourselves. I inserted 2 needles into my arm in the large intestine 11 point and large intestine 10 point. I think LI-10 is supposed to help relieve stress, so that seemed like a no-brainer. I don’t think it hurts- there is a little something, yes, but then the needle is in. With the first point I just felt a slight cooling sensation after the needle was in. I also inserted a needle into the skin between my thumb and index finger, which is supposed to be good to treat headaches. In that spot I felt some tingling, but that’s it. I don’t think I left them in long enough to actually treat myself, since it was too cold to be out in the barn with my sleeves rolled up.

LI-11 is the one right on the elbow, and then moving down my arm toward my wrist is LI-10

Overall, it was a great lab. I love that we actually got to insert the needles ourselves, that we saw 3 different techniques of acupuncture, with the regular acupuncture, electroacupuncture, and moxie, and that we got to attempt it on ourselves, because what better way is there to know what it feels like? Next week our club will be hosting a similar wetlab aimed at small animal acupuncture, which I am eagerly anticipating. Hopefully by then with a week of my Traditional Chinese Medicine classes under my belt I’ll have some more background knowledge on the different points and what they are all used for.

Fundraising Updates

I wanted to give everyone an update of how we have been doing with our fundraising adventure! So far I have done bake sales and a "Vets Going Wild" night at Ibiza in Stillwater. Both were moderately successful, but I'm going to have to step it up in order to raise the amount needed by June.

So my next fundraiser is a very quick one, a Yankee Candle Sale for Christmas. Unfortunately, in order to get orders in by Christmas I need money in by  November 14. I will however be doing the fundraiser for their spring catalog as well, and I will have a lot more time for that one. The website for the online catalog is Yankee Candle.

Also, for anyone in the Norman, Oklahoma City or Stillwater area, I am co-hosting a pet photo shoot! We will have a bake sale and raffles going on while we take pictures of your pets, either in Christmas outfits or just because. The photo shoot will be on November 17 from 9-3 at the Rose Rock Veterinary Clinic in Norman. No appointment needed.

I have also started planning a wine tasting event in Stillwater for next semester on January 10. This one is still in the works, but we are hoping to have multiple bottle of wine to taste as well as a wine pool and some raffles. There will be more information on this in the upcoming weeks.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far in this! You have no idea how much it means to me =]

Reptile Necropsy Lab

This morning was the wet lab I have been waiting for for a year and a half. I wasn’t too excited about having to get up at 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday, but I was willing to do it. Granted, I did fall back asleep after turning off my alarm and didn’t end up waking up until nearly 8, but the good intentions were there, and even though I was a little late at least I didn’t sleep through it!

This morning was the ZEW club’s reptile necropsy lab. By now I’m sure you’re all tired of reading about ZEW club and wish I would talk about something else, but to me exotics are just awesome and interesting and I love learning about them and talking about them.

So this morning Dr. Brad Minson from Banfield came in to give us a short lecture on reptile anatomy, basically just hitting all the main differences between reptiles and mammals, and he brought in some specimens for us to dissect. ( I do want to point out that all of the animals he brought died of natural causes and were donated to us as a learning experience; no animals were bred just for us to necropsy.) I actually wish he had given us a longer lecture, because there was a lot of interesting information. For example, reptiles have a 3-chambered heart (mammals have a 4 chambered heart) and their red blood cells have a nucleus (ours don’t). In mammals, the sciatic nerve runs down the outer part of the leg, but in lizards the sciatic nerve actually runs dorsal to the kidneys (so it is between the kidneys and the back body wall). So any kind of renal disease that leads to enlargement of the kidneys can actually lead to leg paralysis in a lizard. I also learned the most common site for venipuncture in a lizard is the ventral tail vein, which runs right down the underside of their tail. I would never just stick my own lizards, but if any of them ever need blood drawn now I know how to do it. And it’s definitely a lot more tricky than in a dog or a cat, because you cannot see that vein through the scales, so it all comes down to knowing your anatomy.

We also had a ton of different snakes to look at, including 2 rattlesnakes (their heads were wrapped up because their venom is still poisonous even when dead). Snakes are weird. They really are. Their anatomy is so different. We spent a while looking at what we thought was the stomach because it looked like it had rugae and was where the stomach would be in a mammal, only to realize that it was attached to the trachea and was actually the lung. It looks nothing like our lungs. They have trabeculae instead of alveoli, and they have this caudal blind sac that doesn't function in air exchange at all. I have no idea what the point of it is. The arrangement is also different, with the liver coming before the stomach and the gall bladder past the stomach, as opposed to being nestled in the liver like it is in ours. It’s close to the splenopancreas, which is the combined spleen and pancreas organ that snakes have. And all the organs are long and tubular, since they obviously have nowhere else to go. Except for the kidneys, which look kind of lack a stack of coins that was pushed over like dominoes. All lizards have kidneys that look like this, which makes them very distinctive. In a lizard, the organ that looks like a mammalian kidney is most likely a testis. Like I said, it’s weird.

There was also one red-eared slider to look at, which I was really excited about. As I have also mentioned multiple times, I LOVE turtles of all breeds. And they’re so funky, there’s no other animal really like them. Sometimes my husband picks up Soleil just to stare at her and tells her how weird her anatomy is. Yes, he actually does that. But what he sees as weird, I see as fascinating. Turtle anatomy is really unique. For starters, instead of having body compartments that go from head to tail, turtles have compartments that go from top to bottom. So instead of having lungs that take up the cranial portion of the thoracic cavity (which is what mammals have, basically meaning they are closer to the head than the stomach in the abdomen is), turtles’ lungs take up the dorsal third of the body, meaning they take up all the space within the body, just only the top portion of it. And their scapula (shoulder bone) is on the ventral surface instead of the dorsal surface. (Sorry for all the anatomy terms- our shoulder blades are on the dorsal surface toward our backs, while a turtle’s is on the bottom toward its stomach.) And if you were ever wondering, yes, turtles do have ears. But they are sheets of skin stretched out over the otic capsule, there is no external parts like we have. And if you want to find the jugular vein, you kind of have to pull their head out to stretch their long neck out, but other than that it’s in the same place as ours, and can be used for catheterization and venipuncture.

Overall, this was definitely one of the more interesting wetlabs I’ve even been too. It’s one of the more interesting labs I’ve had overall in vet school. I really wish they would give us more exotics work during school, because some of this stuff is just so incredibly interesting. Just how different it is from our own anatomy is interesting. I would love an in-depth lecture on reptilian anatomy. But since I might not get that, I asked Dr. Minson for a copy of his lecture powerpoint, like the nerd I am. Between that, my new turtle dissection guide, and my dozens of pictures from today’s lab I think I’ll be all right for a little while.

A red eared slider- you can see the 2 scapula right by the neck, and the dark mass is the liver.

Bearded Dragon abdomen; you can see some lung, the liver, the gall bladder, and some intestines.

This is the heart and lung of a snake. You can also see the caudal vena cava coming off of the heart.

This is the stomach and intestines of a monitor lizard. You can see the impression from the chicken bone in his stomach (the chicken bone didn't kill him, this poor guy was attacked by a dog).

The kidneys of a snake. You can kind of see their "stacked coin" appearance.

The kidneys of the monitor lizard also have a "stacked coin" appearance, and the sciatic nerve runs directly underneath them.

I'm holding the salpinx of a snake, which is essentially their uterus.

Me holding the red eared slider. I <3 my turtles and learning everything I can about them!

Green Sea Turtle Rehabilitation

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE turtles. I always have, and I always will. If I could I would adopt every sea turtle in the world and take care of them, and I hope there is a time when I'll have the resources to be able to help out more.

But since I can't, I am really glad that there are people who can. This is the blog of the South Carolina Aquarium's Sea Turtle Hospital. They take calls from people who either rescued a turtle or see one that needs help, and then they provide appropriate treatment and rehabilitation. They also take pictures throughout the process if you are interested in seeing what they do.

http://networkedblogs.com/DYHVL

If you have a minute, I highly encourage you go check out their blog. Besides being interesting from a medical standpoint, it's interesting from a conservation standpoint as well. I had no idea there were so many accidents still involving sea turtles. To me, they are beautiful creatures, and they have been on this planet a lot longer than we have, and now they need our help.

I know she's not a sea turtle, but this is my beautiful leopard tortoise Soleil when she was a baby. You can't resist that face!

Large Animal Rotation

Today for clinics I had the large animal rotation, where we get a case, are given the presenting symptoms, and then we are supposed to come up with a list of differentials, a diagnosis, and a treatment plan. Basically, the point is to start training your brain to actually think like a vet, which isn't as easy as I thought it would be. It's so easy to jump ahead and skip steps and make assumptions that can cause you to miss a lot of important clues in what is actually wrong. Anyway, so we got this case and we were left alone to discuss as a group what we thought was going wrong. And even though it pains me to say this, this large animal case was so much better than the equine one.

Our case was about a 2 month old mixed breed beef calf. He was admitted for having a bilaterally distended abdomen and for appearing depressed. He had previously been admitted for calf diphtheria (I just had my exam on that one- yay for knowing Fusobacterium necrophorum!) and had been on antibiotics for a while. Now the thing about cows is their rumen is a pain in the butt. Anything wrong with the rumen is no good. Anything wrong with all the little microbes inside the rumen is no good. And what do antibiotics do? Wipe out all the little microbes in the rumen. So as we were discussing the case that was like a red flag to be aware of.

The attending clinician gave us the vitals from this calf (high heart rate and weak pulse), there was some pinging and splashing in the abdomen (a sign of gas, possibly bloat), absolutely no motility (ruminants should have a least a couple of gut sounds every 2 minutes), and told us that he was dehydrated as well as having some diarrhea. Then we were left to discuss our problem list, differentials, diagnostic procedures, diagnosis, and treatment.

Now, I don't pretend to know anything about cows. I really don't know anything. Mama cow was in the next pen over with a ridiculously fuzzy winter coat that made her look like a teddy bear, and I didn't even know cows grew winter coats. I don't know why they wouldn't, but it never occurred to me that they would, either. So that pretty much sums up my experience with cows.

So while the group is sitting around discussing, one of the first things said is a displaced abomasum. This is one of the only diseases that I actually know about it cattle, besides bloat. The abomasum is the "true stomach" of the cow's 4 chambered stomach, meaning it's the chamber that's like our own stomach. And normally it sits more on the right side of the abdomen, and it being displaced just means it's not sitting where it should be. I think we also came up with decreased vagal innervation (the vagus innervated the GI tract) as well as just all the little rumen bugs being wiped out. I was happy about this, because it meant I actually knew what was going on. I didn't really think it was a displaced abomasum though, because beef cattle almost never get them. That's apparently a dairy cow thing. I was told this by someone who knows a lot more about cows than I ever will (aka Jenn).

Eventually our clinician comes back and tells us that it actually IS a left displaced abomasum. And all the clinicians were so excited and told us we were the luckiest vet students in the entire world that we got to see this. I will take their word for it. But we did get to watch the clinicians ultrasound the calf, which was cool. usually when you ultrasound the rumen you can't see anything, because gas blocks the ultrasound waves and thanks to the rumen bugs the rumen is full of gas. But because all of the microbes in this calf had died we could see into the rumen, and we could also see the abomasum right where it shouldn't be, next to the rumen. Then we got to watch (and help) rock the calf. That's what they call it when you essentially flip the calf onto its back, grab it's feet and rock it from side to side. The idea is that reversing the orientation of the calf would move the gas in the stomach, and then by rocking the gas would kind of carry the abomasum back to where it should be. Unfortunately, probably because this calf had no gas on it's stomach, ultrasound confirmed that 2 attempts at rocking didn't work. That means the poor little guy is probably going to need surgery to fix it.

But I'm feeling pretty good about getting to witness something so rare (because apparently a left displaced abomasum in beef cattle are completely unheard of) and to see how to rock a calf. I'd say this is in the top 3 as far as productive clinic days go. =]

Fundraising Attempt Number 1

I recently tested my hand at a bake sale, which was my first fundraising attempt to go to South Africa. It was our school's homecoming game (which I found out about 2 days before the game), so I decided I was going to make cupcakes with our school's colors on them and attempt to sell them. I've never done a bake sale before. I had no idea how many cupcakes to make or how to go about selling them, but that wasn't going to stop me.

I spent about 4 and a half hours baking and decorating cupcakes, both regular sized ones and minis, because they're so cute! Jenn made me some kick-ass homemade icing, and I picked up a Halloween decorating kit, since the colors so nicely match our school colors. And for the record, the homemade icing was waaaay better than the Betty Crocker icing I picked up. It started out looking nice and then completely melted off the cupcakes before I even got outside, and yes, the cupcakes were cool when I decorated them. It left me with an unfortunate number of cupcakes that looked too bad to sell, but my husband was more than happy to eat them so I wouldn't have to be reminded of my icing blunder.


It was harder than I thought. It was harder baking and decorating then I thought, and harder to sell them than I thought. By the end I was tired, thirsty, hungry, sweaty, and ready to go home. But it was also easier, because a lot of people were much more generous than I was expecting. My trooper of a husband walked around the school campus with me for nearly 3 hours to sell these cupcakes. We had a mobile bake sale, which people seemed to really like. There were a lot of supportive people out there who were willing to by my cupcakes that were melting in the Oklahoma heat, and there were a surprising number of people who didn't want a cupcake but were willing to donate to me anyway. And that really, honestly touched me. I think that's one of the main things I like about Oklahoma. You don't really see that in Philly too much.

We managed to sell every cupcake that was presentable, as well as a couple that weren't (in my opinion, at least). I would call that a success. Granted, it wasn't really a huge amount of money considering they were just cupcakes for 50 cents or a dollar and taking into account the money I had to spend to make them, but I was really proud of myself for pulling it off. And I learned an important lesson, which was yes, people will help you out and buy your cupcakes. So now we're going to be doing bake sales at our other fundraisers, the next of which is a pet photoshoot on November 17. Wish us luck, and if you're in the Norman area, bring your pets out and help support us!

Up Close and Personal with the GI Tract

I think my last anatomy lab was one of the more interesting ones, at least for parts of it. This time the themes was gastrointestinal tracts. The lab was split into three parts- equine, large animal and small animal, and then each of those sections was split up as well. So for the equine rotation we got to observe endoscopy and ultrasound, which was really cool. Now I fully admit I am no good at reading an ultrasound yet. I couldn’t do it for therio when trying to find follicles on the ovaries, and if I hadn’t been told what I was looking at I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if I was looking at spleen, intestine, or artifact. But it’s clinical application, and I love learning that. Since I’m hoping to become an equine practitioner I’m going to have to learn someday, so I might as well start now, right? We traced over the entire gastrointestinal tract, starting at the edge between the thorax and abdomen, where we could see some lung too, over the stomach, spleen, liver, intestines, kidneys, cecum, and colon. I won’t promise this, but I feel slightly confident now that if I saw an ultrasound I could at least tell you the difference between the spleen and the liver on an ultrasound. Especially if I knew which side of the body the image was from. Ultrasound is such a useful diagnostic technique, but I think they need an entire class on how to read it. No more radiographs, I’ve had enough of them. We need some more ultrasonography. 

Then we got to watch one of the vets scope a horse, and he did get the endoscope all the way into the stomach. I am a little worried about being able to perform endoscopy myself, since apparently if you play a lot of video games you’ll be really good at it. I do not play a lot of video games, and I definitely wasn’t picking up on the whole everything is reversed aspect of it very quickly. But I’ve only ever seen inside the stomach of a dead horse, and that’s a lot different, so it was really interesting. And we some some bot flies in the horse we scoped. I did feel bad for the horse though. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not really fun having a tube shoved up your nose and down your esophagus all afternoon.

The final equine station was about putting a stomach tube down a horse’s esophagus. This is important because when a horse has colic one of the things you might do is give it some mineral oil to try and break up whatever obstruction is causing it. So we did give a horse about 2 gallons of mineral oil and then refluxed it all back up. This part was mostly learning about positioning, how to make sure you’re in the esophagus and not the trachea, and then we all gathered around to listen for gut sounds. My favorite part of the lab, for obvious reasons. I feel like I’ve been horse deprived while in school, so I always love being able to just be around them, even if it is during lab. At least vet school is probably the only place you can get away with not paying attention to the teacher so you can pet an animal and you won’t get in trouble for it.

Next was the large animal section, aka cows. I am not a cow person. They’re cute when they’re little, then they’re just big. They have pretty eyes, but that’s about it. But in this lab we did pretty much the same things- we ultrasounded the GI tract and put in a stomach tube, and we also got a little lecture on teeth. You might not know it, but cows only have teeth on the bottom of their mouth. On the top they have what’s called a dental pad. Just a little fun fact. 

The best part of the cow lab was getting to stick my hand into Rupert, the school’s fistulated cow. Rupert essentially has a plug in his side that goes straight into his rumen, so you can’t stick your arm in and get all up in the hay inside his stomach. And you can really smell the fermentation. And don’t worry, it doesn’t bother him at all, he’s happy as can be. So we all got to have a feel around his rumen and then we all took a look at a slide that had rumen microbes on it. And those little bugs were zooming around all over the place like my husband after multiple Monsters, or my Sydney going after a roach. I could have watched them for a while, they were very entertaining.

The small animal section was not as much fun, so I’m not going to talk about it much. We did get to look at some pictures from various endoscope procedures in dogs, and we did a “physical exam” on two dogs, meaning we pet them and tried to look busy. This can be a good lab, but it’s on a Friday afternoon, and by the end of the week if you stick a dog in my lap I’m a lot more likely to scratch it’s ears than palpate it’s lymph nodes. But over all, I’d say it was a pretty good lab. 

Passing mineral oil down a nasogastric tube

Me and Jenn

Listening to gut sounds

A brave classmate inserting the hallow tube that we pass the stomach tube through, which prevents the cow from being able to bite down on and destroy the actual stomach tube

ultrasounding a cow

Dr. Streeter ultrasounding a cow

a cow's stomach- the rumen is the giant sac, the reticulum has the honeycomb appearance, and somewhere in there is the omasum and abomasum

Rupert!

Oh Salmonella...

My lab assignment for this week is to attempt to culture Salmonella from a fecal sample. I don't know whether or not their actually is Salmonella in the sample, and I probably won't until about Thursday, because apparently Salmonella is very difficult to culture.

Now, you may be asking why I would care about culturing Salmonella. And besides the obvious that I am getting graded on this and it will most likely be a large part of my next lab exam, there is also the fact that everyone reading this has heard of Salmonella. If I decided to talk about culturing Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae you really wouldn't know what I was talking about. But Salmonella is a very important zoonotic disease; it's why we're told never to eat raw eggs, because chickens can pass Salmonella through their eggs. Salmonella is a common cause of enteritis in humans, which is essentially disease in your intestines, and it is actually the most common food borne zoonosis that causes mortality.

So I guess you could say that Salmonella is a pretty big deal in the infectious diseases world.

Salmonella is a pain to culture because of a couple reasons. One, just because you might have the disease doesn't mean you're actively shedding it. Salmonella sheds intermittently, so a negative culture doesn't guarantee that you're actually negative for Salmonella. You have to have at least 5 negative cultures, each one 48 hours apart, before you can say with 95% certainty that you might be negative for Salmonella. Of course, if it's positive, then you're positive.

Salmonella also takes a really long time to grow. We try to help it out by using a special medium called a Selenite broth, which is a type of enrichment broth. Basically it increases your chances of finding Salmonella present in small numbers by suppressing the growth of other bacteria (Gram+) and enhancing the growth of Salmonella. And then even after you do all this culturing, you only have Salmonella suspects. You have to do additional testing to confirm that what you are seeing is actually Salmonella and not just another Enterobacteriaceae, like E. coli. We do this using slant mediums to test for color changes in the medium to see if it is a fermenting or non-fermenting colony (Salmonella is non-fermenting). Each step of the incubation process takes at least a day, since the plates all need to incubate overnight. And that is why if your vet thinks your animal has Salmonella and wants to culture it, you probably won't hear back for about a week.

These are some positive Salmonella cultures.

Notice how the Salmonella turned black in the one culture? And on the right side it is a pink color on an agar that started out more yellowish-green.

Color change in a slant tube test