Exam Period; Finals

It's been a couple weeks since we finished lectures and I passed all my credits of first year.

Lots of people have been busy squeezing exams in trying to get home quickly, I started with Diseases of Bees getting a B and a D in Diseases of Fish but I've been concentrating on trying to pass Genetics, in vain.

I had the exam on Wednesday and although I was mostly prepared for it and got good questions, I got stuck on the detail and failed. Most of our exams are oral so I wrote out my questions, explained the first which went well, nearly finished the second question when he asked me what level the teratogens effect. I got stuck and wasn't sure so he just told me to come back and try again.

I've booked in for the July date which is an inconvenience but I guess third time lucky!

He's renowned for being a tough examiner and there are 7 of us coming back in summer to sit it so hopefully we'll be ok.

I stayed up until 5am this morning revising for General Micro which I had at 8am.

Despite the late night (early morning?) I managed to get a B which I was happy with. A trip to Maccies ensued followed by a decent power nap this afternoon.

I'm going to try and do Practical and Special Micro exams next week, Virology the week after then Histology will be my last so when that's done I can go home for summer!

What Frantiska thinks of revision...

What Františka thinks of revision...

Revising down at Falconry

Revising outside with these guys today 🌞

From left to right you can see MC the female Kestrel, Iggy the female Peregrine Falcon, Habrok the male Goshawk, Frantiska the Female Harris' Hawk, Duckie the male Peregrine and then Nazgul the male Harris' Hawk.

Rabbit Awareness Week

As it's Rabbit Awareness Week​, I thought I'd share a photo of me and Sherlock who I adopted back in 2011.

RAW have been spreading the word of rabbits as pets, giving free veterinary health checks and advice on rabbit nutrition and healthcare!

Rabbit's are social animals and prefer to be kept in pairs or groups so we got Sherlock castrated and along came Watson...

We have a couple Omlet Eglu rabbit houses with extended runs and the boys get free range of the garden most of the time when we're home. I know some people question eglu's as rabbit houses but they have much more room than a traditional hutch and personally I think they're great, easy to keep clean and move around the garden to give them fresh grass.

Peregrine Falcon with Bumblefoot

Brigid and I picked up a new bird from the clinic on Monday, a female Peregrine Falcon.
We don't know much about her history, just that she was bought to the clinic from Austria for treatment.

We could see both feet were swollen and hot to the touch, when we picked her up onto the glove she was very unbalanced and shaking slightly so obviously they were painful to stand on.
We thought it was Bumblefoot (which I've seen a few times before in chickens) which reading online can happen in many ways, namely when a talon pierces the skin on the bottom of the foot which heals enclosing bacteria and causes infection, from trauma or from improper perching.

This morning we took her to the clinic and Dr Major one of the vets had a look at her.
He anaesthetised her with gas and had a good look at her feet, confirming it was Bumblefoot in both feet. Using a little scoopy instrument (technical term) he got out the infection, thoroughly cleaned it with Betadine and applied an antibiotic Bumblefoot Cream to dry it all up; the girls bandaged both feet and woke her up.

The clinic made up a solution for us to apply to the bandaged each day to keep it clean and dry it out and we'll take her back to have them re-dressed on Monday.
They used yellow vet wrap but if you look closely you can just see them bandaged up...

I fed her on the glove this afternoon and she seemed much comfier on them already, still using her wings to balance herself a few times but was using her talons to hold food while she ate.

Františka caught a Pigeon

We've been trying to get Františka the Female Harris' Hawk hunting but we need to take her to the fields by the Zoo and while she's been up there a few times, we really need a car to take her up there regularly.

She caught a pigeon this round by the back of Toxicology this afternoon so hopefully if we can get her doing that and then take her to the fields she may take other quarry.

The only problem with being over there is that there are garages so once she caught it she landed on the roof.

She killed it pretty quickly but Brigid had to go up and get her back...

Summer Placements

Over the last few weeks I've been trying to arrange some Summer Placements - I've already got a few weeks sorted for this year and now I've got a holiday booked, I only have a handful of free days throughout the whole of summer!

The Equine hospital I thought I was spending a week at replied and said placements are minimum of three weeks so I've booked that in for the end of August.
I've applied to work at lots of festivals this summer because the money is great and I enjoy the work, so I'm hoping my placements will fit around working.

I found a large Mixed hospital (Pets, Equine and Farm) on recommendation of a friend which is called Straiton & Partners who are in Penkridge, about 30mins drive from home. I emailed one of the vets also called Lewis and asked about placement for next year so have two weeks booked in for July 2016 - talk about organised!
It looks like a really big practice with 11 vets truly mixed so equal Pets, Equine and Farm - they have the main hospital and then another branch in Rugeley.

Twycross Zoo also replied and said I could apply for a three week placement for 2016 but it would be husbandry focused rather than in their Veterinary Centre which is newly built and looks really good online. I'm not sure what to do now as three weeks is a massive chunk of my summer and it may be better to spend time in practice, especially as I'll be going into 5th year after that!

Credit Week

So, we've reached the final week of summer semester, Week 13 - unlucky for most.

This week I have 4 exams, two are credits and two finals.
Tuesday starts with Diseases of Bees, Wednesday is Anatomy credit followed by Special Bacteriology credit and then on Thursday I have the Diseases of Fish final.

We had a long weekend as its a Bank Holiday, though we have Friday off unlike the UK who have Monday, so I tried to get some revision done but didn't do much.
I wrote out all my notes for Special Bac but haven't really learnt them so need to do that the night before!