Tag: vet

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Consequence of an open gate: Part 3

Yesterday I spend most of my time on tenterhooks. I thought I would wait 24hours to see if Izzy and Thomas improved. Knowing how I feel when my stomach is rebelling against the rest of my body, I thought it would be good to just watch and wait.

Several times I went into the paddock and walked Thomas and Izzy around the pen. Really this was just slowly walking behind them to get their  systems active and to get them to poop. It is really amazing how much of animal management is based upon animal poop. I am consistently watching poop consistency, colour, smell, frequency, and viscosity. Yes it seems kind of gross, but when they can't talk you have to look for other ways of figuring out how they are feeling.

So I watched to see how the bowels of both Izzy and Thomas were reacting to their overeating experience. Thomas took longer to show signs of recovery than Izzy.

Izzy went from diarrhea, to producing healthy looking cow poop, to what could have been mistaken for soft-serve ice-cream that had a definite sound when they hit the ground.

Thomas only started to improve later on in the day. I was very happy when he finally started firming up and his back end no longer behaved like a hose squirting thick, muddy water. I was very close to calling Dr. Rob back to entubate Thomas again.

By the end of the day, both were a bit more interested in eating. They mouthed and nibbled on a bit of hay. This was encouraging.

Today I will be watching again. If they don't eat then Dr. Rob will be coming back, but I am really hoping they will eat.

The lambs and Itchy are so sick of being in the pen. They will get to go out to the paddock for a little bit this afternoon.

Wish us luck!

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The consequence of an open gate: Part 2

Well, The barn gate had already been left open so now I had to just deal with it.

Dr. Swackhammer wasn't very long at all. He was going to drench them with a magnesium carbonate mixture to bring the PH levels back to normal. It had a few other constituents in it too, notably ginger and capsicum.  Acidosis is generally caused when sheep, or other ruminants alter the PH levels in their rumens. Usually through eating grains. Essentially they desperately needed an antacid.

Dr. Rob, and his assistant Jemma, came in with a bucket, hose, funnel, and a bottle of powdered antacid for sheep. Of course Izzy and Thomas wouldn't just open up and say AWWW politely waiting to have a tube down their gullets. No, Dr. Rob had to catch and restrain the poor animals while getting that long tube down into their stomach.

Izzy was the first to be fed the tube. I turned on the light and Dr. Rob, promptly got Izzy into the stall and caught her. Izzy is not the best patient for anything. Even while trimming hooves she never completely settles down. She was no better today. Jemma mixed up the solution, the dosage was approximately one quarter of what a cow would get. (There are lots of reasons for this and I don't know what they are so I wouldn't try this at home without a vet present!)

Inch by inch the tube disappeared down Izzy's throat. I have done this to animals after they have expired in various classes I have taken. It is far easier when the animal can't move around. Watching Izzy thrash about is a good reminder of how strong even a small animal can be when they don't want to be cooperative. Once the tube was in her stomach Dr. Rob had to blow into the tube. I guess to make sure it was in the right place and to get things moving. He also could have been sucking like trying to get a water flow going too?

Dr. Rob had Jemma get the funnel ready and pour the antacid mixure into the funnel. Izzy really didn't like this but she took her dose. Once it was done the hose was pulled out of her like a long white worm. It looked very odd, like a magic trick. She stood there dazed for a moment, not sure what to do. Once she had realized she was no longer being held she walked towards the door slowly and calmly.

Watching an animal that has just been manhandled walk away is a strange sight. If you move too fast around most sheep they startle. We startle if something moves unexpectedly. But no, Izzy just walked and looked very dejected.

The same thing happened with Thomas. Thomas wasn't feeling well at all because he also walked out of the stall slowly.

Both of our poor sheep just stood there with their ears back staring. I felt so bad for them. The good thing is they should be better in a couple of days. Dr. Rob thought it was good it was caught early. Much shorter journey to recovery than if it had been left for another day.

So, there is my lesson of always being present when I am working with animals.

Here are the pictures!

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There is a chicken in the basement

Having animals ensures there is never a dull moment. Many people are familiar with the needs and common ailments of cats and dogs. Somewhat fewer are aware of the needs of small fuzzy hamster-like creatures. A select few educate themselves in regards to reptiles, amphibians, and other cold-blooded wonders. Often if anything goes wrong the animal care-giver brings the poor creature to a vet to help it out. Farming is a bit different. I have learned this today. It has been a long day. It started a couple of days ago when I noticed that one of our chickens was looking a little worse for wear. She is a bit smaller than the others and the gland at the base of her tail was dirty as was her behind. This had seemed to come on quite suddenly. The day before last I also found an egg that had some blood on it.Well this morning I manage to catch her as she was coming out of the coop. I picked her up, turned her upside down and low and behold; she had prolapsed. I have seen this in magazines and hoped that I would not have to deal with such a problem. At least not yet in my young chicken keeping career. This was not to be, I was not staring an obvious prolapsed vent right in the behind so to speak. I needed to go to the computer. An hour later I had amassed a fair bit of information of how to treat this. You see, if you have livestock on a small scale using a vet really isn't an option, and they often don't know how to deal with a single animal. Chicken are generally kept in huge barns of 10,000+ so one little chicken is often not a problem. If a vet does happen to actually see this the first stream of action is to put the poor thing down. I found different and helpful information on-line. There are a number of resources for novice and experienced chicken keepers alike; thecitychicken.com, backyardchickens.com, mypetchicken.com, theaccidentalsmallholder.net among others. I found out things I never imagined to treat our poor pullet. The causes for this are numerous and I really don't know why it has happened to her. She is well over 20 weeks, they have the run of a very large paddock and pen so calcium shouldn't be an issue, and there is plenty of food accessible. Some preventative measures have been taken regardless; such as putting out oyster shells to increase calcium consumption just in case. The basic information on how to treat a chicken's prolapsed vent is as follows:

1. set up chicken isolation unit
2. catch chicken
3. wash chicken behind
4. have honey ready to apply to prolapse
5. insert honey loaded finger into vent carefully
6. push vent back in and make sure interior passage is coated with honey
7. give some raw apple cider vinegar to chicken to boost immune system
8. keep in the dark to attempt prevention of laying

Well this has been a large part of my day minus the apple cider vinegar. I cset up a pen in the basement using our dog Beauty's old dog cage, caught her, bathed her, pushed the prolapse in with honey and put her in her new home. I have put back her innards again this evening. Hopefully she will be okay, but I suspect that killing cone and knife will come in handy that I ordered from Berryhill. No one ever said being self sufficient was pretty.