Day 37- Get Dirty!

     Another busy day in the Food Animal Clinic as our time in this rotation dwindles down. Yesterday we had a miniature Hereford bull with a case of lumpy jaw. This is where bacteria gets into the bones of the jaw and cause bone growth and infection, which is where it gets the name lumpy jaw, I know it is very scientific! Next we had a bucking bull with a broken elbow, who despite his painful injury was trying to hook anything in site.
              
     







      Like a good southern girl, I had made a big crock pot (thanks to Nana and Papa for sending us to OK with a good crock pot) of boiled peanuts for all the doctors and students on my rotation. After dinner last night I realized I forgot to shut the peanuts off before leaving the barn and asked Chad to ride back with me turn them off. Upon arriving at the barn I got word that a dystocia heifer was on it's way (having trouble calving). So of course I asked to stay and help!
      When the heifer arrived and was palpated it was discovered that sadly the calf had died and was way to big to deliver normally, this meant that a fetotomy had to be performed. This is where you use wire the cut the calf into pieces so that you can get it out. The calf is already dead and this is much less traumatic on the mom than trying to pull the calf whole or doing a C-section. But as you can imagine this is a tough and DIRTY job. I jumped right in head first and got to make the head cut (pun intended)! After 2 hours, every doctor and student in sight looked like they were just in a mass murder seen, but we got the calf out and mom was standing and on the trailer to go home by midnight.