Kitabı oku: «Tales from a Young Vet: Part 2 of 3: Mad cows, crazy kittens, and all creatures big and small»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter Seven: Fly on the Wall

Chapter Eight: We Saved a Life

Chapter Nine: Into the Wild

Chapter Ten: Between Two Worlds

Chapter Eleven: The Kitten who Thought She Was a Parrot

Chapter Twelve: Mad Cows and Doris the Goat

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About the Publisher

CHAPTER SEVEN
Fly on the Wall

Two weeks in the Dorset sunshine seemed an inviting prospect. After a week of nights at the equine hospital it felt like an age since I’d seen daylight, so I was looking forward to being out in the fields working with farm animals.

Along with two other vet students, Alice and Danielle, I was staying in an adorable picture-postcard cottage in a pretty picture-postcard village with the distinctly un-picturesque name of Shittington – not that it bothered any of the local people, who were a lovely bunch.

The three of us were there to study farm animal population, which meant doing the rounds with the local farm vets. This was a little like the work we were doing in Wales, checking out the health of local herds, but this time we were allowed to do a lot more of the actual procedures; it was more hands-on and less to do with writing reports and adding up statistics, and my hope was that it would give my farm skills a real boost.

We spent the next two weeks taking blood from calves to assess how much immunity had passed on from the mother, and vaccinating calves and cows against BVD (Bovine Viral Diarrhoea) and IBR (Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis, a virus that affects the airways and fertility). Both are nasty viruses that can spread fast. As we’d already learned in Wales, the priority for farmers these days is to keep the herd healthy, so they’re always on the watch for anything that might cause real problems.

In between vaccinations and taking blood samples I had fun learning how to use a pregnancy scanner and how to trim cows’ hooves. The scanner is a sausage-shaped probe that you hold in your hand and insert into the cow rectally. It relays pictures back to a screen and gives a more detailed diagnosis of pregnancy than simply using your hand.

As for hoof-trimming, it’s a bit like cutting your nails but a lot harder work! A cow’s toes are covered by a thick coating of keratin, the same stuff our nails are made of, and like nails they keep growing. Cows need this trim one or twice a year, and the idea is to create a perfectly shaped hoof so that they can walk comfortably; we used hoof nippers and hoof knives to do this. I enjoyed shaping their hooves to make them nice and even, trimming off loose edges that could trap dirt, all the while checking for ulcers and spraying antibiotics if there were any signs of infections. The cows were, for the most part, very patient while we worked and I liked to think they appreciated the effort. The trimmings aren’t just thrown away afterwards, they are kept and used to make the foam in fire extinguishers, among other things.

On the last day of the first week, while we were doing our thing down on the farm, I bumped into Isobel, the producer of Young Vets, who was scouting for filming locations for when Grace came to do her farm elective in a couple of months’ time. She came to watch us at work, and we spent an hour or so chatting and explaining what we were attempting to do with the hooves of the cows. In return she told us a bit more about Young Vets and how it was all going. She explained that, contrary to what we all thought, it wasn’t reality TV or a fly-on-the-wall programme, it was an observational documentary. Right, I thought, so there’s a difference? Weren’t they pretty much the same thing? I decided I’d better keep my thoughts to myself.

That night I dashed off to Kent for the weekend to go to Abi’s birthday party. She’d just finished her first year as a teacher and she was in the mood to celebrate. We had a great night out and danced till one in the morning, so I arrived back in Dorset a little tired on Sunday evening.

After another week with the cows in the glorious Dorset countryside I headed back home to catch up with my family, before starting a fortnight’s work experience with a sports horse veterinary practice that provided veterinary services for the local racecourse.

This was heady stuff; the idea of working with highly strung racehorses fascinated me. They are mostly hot-blooded thoroughbreds – tall, slim, athletic and handsome – but because of the exertion they are put under they have a high accident rate and a lot of health problems.

The first race I attended was on a Tuesday evening, which meant working a long day as I had started at eight that morning when we visited a number of local stables. I really didn’t care, though, because I was so excited and couldn’t wait to see behind the scenes.

We had been told to dress smartly, which was impractical but necessary according to the rules, so, in contrast to my usual dress-down, vet-on-the-go look, I wore smart beige tailored trousers with a crisp shirt, my freshly washed black Musto coat and polished boots.

Vets Jane and Tanya, both of whom, in their tailored outfits, looked more like race officials than vets, were warm and welcoming. Jane had just been made a partner of the practice, despite still being in her early thirties, and Tanya was a hugely experienced vet with loads of tips to pass on. They knew exactly what they were doing, oozed confidence and looked completely at home amongst the race officials and racegoers. I, on the other hand, felt totally out of place and would have been more at ease in my wellies mucking out the stable.

Just before the first race, the three of us went to stand in the middle of the parade ring amongst the trainers, owners and jockeys to assess how each horse was walking and to pick up any problems. Tanya and Jane were running me through a checklist of what to look out for when the first of the racehorses came through – and took my breath away. I had been around horses all my life, but I had never seen anything like these specimens. These were super-horses, the athletes of the horse world; every muscle popped from them, they were lean, their coats glistened in the low sunlight and their manes flowed. These were horses at their peak.

When the bell rang the jockeys mounted almost in unison. The horses seemed to know what the bell signalled and some of them started bouncing with excitement. The trainers led them down the walkway to the race track and, as the last one left the ring, we followed. Racegoers crowded towards the walkway on both sides, watching the horses and looking curiously at us. For a few heady moments I had a sense of what it must feel like to be a champion athlete, coming out of the tunnel onto the pitch, with a fever of excitement and expectation all around.

As the horses reached the racetrack, the trainers stepped back and the jockeys cantered them up to the start line. That was our cue to head for the two BMW cars parked to one side. Tanya got into one to go to the halfway point, ready to cover the second half of the race, and Jane and I got in the other and headed for the start line. Once there we left the car to have a look at the horses waiting to go into the start gates, checking for a final time that none of them appeared lame or unwell. Some were playing up and refusing to walk in without a tussle but the jockeys knew how to manage them. As the last one was led into the stall, Jane and I sprinted back to the car.

We had just seconds before they released the horses. We dived into the car and accelerated to keep up with the horses. It was amazing being right next to the race with the horses galloping beside us, eyes wild and nostrils flaring. I was lost in awe of them, until Jane shouted ‘Hold tight’ and I bounced halfway out of my seat and hit my head hard on the roof. The smooth road beside the track had given way to a bumpy dirt track but we hadn’t slowed down. We followed the horses for another couple of hundred metres until we reached Tanya’s car. At that point she took over and followed the race back onto the smooth road on the other side of the track and on to the finish.

We followed more slowly, me rubbing my sore head as Jane apologised and explained that we absolutely had to keep up with the race. We reached the finish as the last horse was leaving the track, got out of the car and followed them back up the walkway to check that they were all being offered water and washed down, and that none had been hurt during the race. Jane was pulled aside by a trainer who wanted her to put a scope down one of the horses, as it hadn’t run as well as they had expected. We took the horse back to the on-site vet room to put the camera down its windpipe. There was a little mucus, which indicated the start of a mild respiratory infection. This put the trainer’s mind at rest; the horse wasn’t useless, it was becoming ill.