First Rat Castration Surgery

Yesterday I successfully completed my first surgery, a rat castration!

Granted it isn't a surgery done every day in clinics but it's great practice for rabbits and cats with similar principles being applied.

We learnt how to administer and monitor anaesthetics, about the procedure and then suturing afterwards.

We did seven rats between us which all went well and the rats have all been adopted by vet students.

Small Mammals Practical - Blood sampling and nasolacrimal duct flush

We had our second Small Mammals practical this afternoon and learnt all about blood sampling in rodents and rabbits.

We were able to take blood from the medial and marginal ear veins and the saphenous vein in the back leg.

I got the ear vein straight away as we've done that quite a few times before but couldn't get the saphenous; the vet tried afterwards and he struggled too so I didn't feel too bad!
The other rabbits saphenous was much more prominent and other people got that one fine.

We also did nasolacrimal duct flushes which is when you place a catheter in the nasolacrimal duct in the bottom eyelid. It is then flushed with saline which comes down the duct and out the nose to remove any blockages or pus.
The flushed material can be collected and sent for microbiological culturing.

Katie the Jagdhund

Brigid is looking after Katie the 9 week old Jagdhund Terrier and I'm in love

We took her for a walk with Potter the Chihuahua in the park and she's smaller than he is!

Halfway round her little legs got tired so I carried her the rest of the way

Want one

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.

Back to The Oaks

While I was home I thought it would be a good idea to see some practice, my first EMS as a vet student, just to remind me why I was at vet school and keep me motivated for the final half of this semester before the dreaded Finals!

I texted a friend who's a small animal vet at The Oaks, the first place I ever saw practice at, asking what days they were open over Easter and if it would be possible to spend a day with them - the reply came quickly that I could go the day after I got home, Thursday.

I arrived at 8am ready for consults to start at 8:30am where we had post-op checks, vaccinations and a dog who had just gone off his feet who Andy admitted for a neurological examination.

I then went out back to once prep and theatre started; the board was pretty full and Brian was doing most of the operations today.

We started off with two Fine Needle Aspirates (FNA's) on dogs, both which appeared to be fatty lumps rather than anything sinister but were sent off to the lab which can help make a diagnosis or rule out more sinister things like cancer.

Brian stressed the importance of taking true representations of the lumps, swap needles between each biopsy and importance of labelling slides correctly!

Next up we had neuters for a local cat charity - two castrates, one of which came in as a possibly pregnant feral cat but turned out to be a quite friendly little man, followed by a spay on a young female who once turned out to be pregnant once we'd opened her up. 

I've seen pregnant cats spayed before so when Brian asked what I thought about the ethics I was ready with an answer; the procedure is being done for birth control purposes so leaving her to have the kittens on the street would only make this situation worse as not only would she have more kittens in the future but so would her kittens continue the cycle as there's no guarantee that she would be trapped again in order to be speyed in the future.

Before he started the spey Brian the vet asked if I'd like him to talk me through the op, I said I'd seen loads before so he was ok, he double checked I was sure, yep... and so said I had to talk him through what he was doing!
Luckily we did the female urogenital tract in Anatomy last week so it was fresh in my mind and I remembered the abdominal muscles as he was cutting through those. He pointed out that I was naming everything in Latin rather than English and I think (hope!) he was impressed that I could name all the structures.
Andy asked me later on about the endocrine system and although I've done it all before it was years ago and I didn't have a clue! Once he explained it came straight back to me and made sense but I wouldn't have been able to come up with the answers by myself...

It looked like they were getting through the ops board just fine when a cat was admitted in a diabetic or hypoglycemic crisis. He looked a lot better than he had at home where he was circling around the living room, but we took a blood glucose and got a reading of 3.2; it should be between 5 and 15.
He was really cold so put in a cat kennel with a heat pad, some warmed smelly cat food to tempt him and we would repeat blood glucose an hour later.

The last op of the day was a dental on an English Bull Terrier with Cushings disease which is an endocrine disorder usually caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland which causes an excess of cortisone in the blood, affecting metabolism. Because of this they wanted to closely monitor her throughout the anesthesia and keep her on a drip to support the kidneys. 

They really struggled to place a catheter to get the drip in, tried both legs, took a break and then tried again - it said in her notes from 2 years ago that they really struggled back then too.

I monitored her heart and respiratory rates throughout the scale and polish and although they were lower or slower than expected, she was stable throughout and recovered just fine.

The diabetic cats blood glucose stabilised and as he was on insulin they adjusted his medication and timing and were going to monitor it closely for a while.

I really enjoyed the day and felt like I was able to help out and be useful rather than getting in the way, holding animals while they were injected or sedated, wiping down consult tables, helping to pre-med animals with the nurses before surgery and cleaning theatre ready for the next op.

Do Hamsters Fart?

I've just been asked by a friends 7 year old, Do hamsters fart?

Bob, their hamster, loved Brussels Sprouts which is the reason for the question...

To be honest I have no idea if hamsters fart or not but thinking about it, I guess they do.
Hamsters are monogastric omnivores like humans and dogs and they have a very similar digestive system to us, only much smaller!

I've been using my Bargain Books as a laptop tray but now I can actually use it for reference!

The text is in Slovak and Latin (we learn all our anatomy in Latin here) and you can see hamster have a cecum;
labels 20-21 (29 is the back leg) in the first image and 16-18 in the second image (27 is the back leg).

The cecum is a blind ended sac for microbial fermentation, a bit like a cul-de-sac, in which bacteria help enzymes break down plant matter such as cellulose.

A byproduct of this reaction is gas, which I guess means, Yes... Hamsters do fart!

If anyone reading this has any thoughts, please feel free to comment!

Gary Foster Cat Update

Gizmo the foster kitten I was only looking after for a few weeks is still here and he's not going anywhere...

He still gets called all sorts; Gizmo, Giz, Gaz, Gary and my brother calls him Myra...

I had him castrated, vaccinated and wormed before Christmas, all for the bargain price of €30 and he stayed with a local family while I was at home.
He's picked up ear mites from their cat so I've got some Otodex to sort that out which seems to have worked.

I'm planning on taking him home for summer and bringing him back next year so just need to get him microchipped and passported.

Current mood; 4 credit tests this week

What is this furry lionheaded creature?

The new chickens met Watson the rabbit earlier and seemed really interested in him!

He wasn't bothered and just scootled off

Product Testing new Omlet Qute

Omlet asked me to preview and test their new small animal house, the "Qute" and so far I'm really impressed!

Its like a contemporary piece of furniture that doubles as a functioning small animal house!

It seems well built and robust like the Classic and Cube are, really chunky piece of furniture, well thought out and the gerbils seem to like it! Nowhere for them to gnaw at edges like some cages either so it should last ages – even the tube has a metal rim so they can’t chew it!
Its easy to keep the pets in the top or bottom with the “Lift ‘n’ Twist” tube to be able to clean out the bottom drawer, or to fill up food and water. I added a couple of tubes into the bottom draw so they were running though those and making tunnels.

One thing with it being solid on top is how dark it is inside the top ... good with nocturnal animals!

The drawer comes out to empty it to clean ... or use as a "Mobile Play Pen" and take it around the house, as the advert says.

 Looks good next to ma bed and perfect height to use as a bedside table to put my alarm clock on!

Only bad things are – its really heavy! 

I struggled to carry it upstairs so a child would have no chance moving it. They can easily use it to take small furries out and to clean out though. You do need a big deep sink to put it under the tap like photos show with the massive double sink! Its easy to take the top apart and give it all a wipe down too, just 2 clips at the top and it slides out.

 Top opens down to clean it out...

 And the tray comes out to give it all a proper clean...

I think it could do with being a bit taller as they like to climb which they can’t really do so if the top section was taller you could put in shelves, hang in hammocks and wooden ladders – could be used for degu then! The draw is also a really good idea but could be a bit bigger to fit a hamster ball or bigger bag of food in.

As great as it is, I do think its a steep price tag. Have seen a few people comment to say similar, I paid around £50 for my Gerbilarium which is similar and thought that was expensive.

So, I’d definitely get one, would look great, be easy to use and the gerbils would love it ...  just not on ma Student budget! 

Meet Sherlock and Alexander

We went to the CoOp to buy milk, went into Pets at Home just to have a look ... and now have 2 rabbits ... and no milk ;)

Have said for ages I want a Uni rabbit but thought I should be sensible, then we saw this litter of four lops, 12 weeks old, up for adoption on Wednesday ;)

Went back the next day (yesterday) and bought their cage and everything and just the one rabbit ... I went back an hour later to get his brother!

I have one and my housemate has another, living together atm but will be separated (and neutered in a few months) to another cage. Housemate lives in Bulgaria so I have offered to have them both over the holidays!

Mine's called Sherlock 'cos we live on Baker St ...don't know why he's called Alexander, he was going to be called BMW?!

Me + Sherlock...

 Sherlock...

 Sherlock + Alexander