Food Animal Reproduction

Food Animal Reproduction was only a week long, but we packed a lot of awesomeness into that short week!  This rotation focused mostly on dairy cows, although we did have a morning in the swine unit as well as a morning ultrasounding (supposedly) pregnant sheep.  Oh, and we did do breeding soundness evaluations on beef bulls as well!  Anyway, one of the big goals of this rotation is to introduce us to ultrasound in cattle and to teach us the technique for fetal sexing in dairy cows.  Awesome?  Yes!  So on our first day, we got oriented to the ultrasound machines using reproductive tracts from dead animals and practiced palpating cows without the use of an ultrasound.  For me, this was a great day, as I finally managed to figure out how to retract cow uteruses (I won't go into the details, I promise). 

Trying out of of the ultrasound machines with goggle viewers- it's like a virtual reality video game!

Learning to use one of the new ultrasound machines; this one attaches to your waist!

 One day, we learned about bovine embryo transfer.  Basically, you breed a cow that has been superovulated (so she makes more than one egg) and take out the fertilized eggs.  These eggs can then each be put into another cow.  Although our cow didn't end up making any fertilized eggs, it was really interesting to see the process from start to finish!

Flushing the embryos out of our cow

Collection jar for all the little eggs!

Checking to see how many follicles she ovulated via ultrasound

Through the rest of the week, we started ultrasound into our cow palpation, starting by just looking at the tract; by the end of the week, we were all pretty good at sexing little cow fetuses when they were just 60 (or so) days old.  It was pretty amazing to see their little legs kicking at the probe!

Learning to ultrasound cows!

My favorite ultrasound machine; loved the virtual reality goggles!

     

But fetal sexing wasn't all we did! One day, we spent the morning ultrasounding sheep to see if they were pregnant.  It was a little disappointing, since none of them were, but it was fun regardless!

 

 Another day, we spent the morning in the pig barn; we checked a few pregnant sows with the ultrasound to look at the babies, and took a look at one sow that had just had her piglets to make sure there were none left.  All in all, it was a lot of fun rotation, and we learned a lot of practical skills!

Ultrasounding a mama pig

One day, we learned about cow reproduction while eating ice cream at a local dairy... it was pretty much heaven!

Our last day of fetal sexing, all together now!!!

And finally, all of us poop covered and happy at the end of the rotation!

Wild Bird Rehabilitation at TriState Bird Rescue and Research in Newark DE

So as promised, here's a more complete rendition of my time at Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, a wild bird rehabilitation center in Newark DE.  Now, some of you who know me better may be wondering "why is Natalie spending two weeks with wild birds?".  Because it's not like I don't like birds, anyone growing up with my father screaming through the house on a daily basis that everyone has to come to the kitchen to see the cardinal outside on the feeder has to like birds.  But after, as a small child, I was devastated when my parents solemnly sat me down to explain to why I couldn't have a pet bird (it went along the lines of "the cats would kill it" which is probably true), I moved on to animals with fur, and in all honesty, never really thought about treating birds, wild or otherwise. 

What prompted me to do this externship was the fact that I have been collaborating with the wonderful folks at Tri-State for the past few years for part of my PhD thesis.  At the point that I was developing my thesis project, I realized that there were very few reports of Toxoplasma gondii (the parasite I studied) in wild birds.  The University of Pennsylvania has a nice relationship with Tri-State as their staff veterinarian, Dr. Erica Miller, teaches a number of elective courses for veterinary students.  I contacted Erica to see if she might be interested in collaborating, and we went from there!  For well over a year, Erica and the rest of the staff at Tri-State collected blood samples from wild birds for me so that I could check them for T.gondii antibodies.  After all the work that they had put in towards helping my project to succeed, I wanted to spend a little time there as well to get the chance to learn a little about wildlife medicine, to see how their organization works, and to give back a little bit of my time to the birds that helped me earn my degree!

So veterinary externs frequently visit Tri-State for two week rotations during their fourth year, although I can imagine that most of them have a little more hands on avian experience than I did.  My first day was a whirlwind of new skills, especially since there were close to 300 birds in house that needed daily care!  I learned to pick up birds (everything from songbirds to raptors), which I thought was an achievement enough for one day, but there was much more in store for me!  What I quickly learned, however, was how translational medicine really is.  I had to laugh when I sutured up my first bird wing (a little song bird with a cat bite); I was using suture thinner than sewing thread!  And the last animal I had sutured only a week before was a horse, using suture that comparatively seemed as thick as my finger!  But the knots are the same, regardless of the suture sized or the animal size, so I quickly got into the swing of things! 

Suturing the chest of a small songbird that was bitten by a cat

 Over the first few days, I got a handle on most of the routine medical treatments that were given through the hospital; from giving SQ or IV fluids to gavage feeding, from taking radiographs to drawing blood.  Our days started at 8 with the volunteer/staff meeting; one of the amazing things about Tri-State is how volunteer oriented it is; the volunteers truly spend hours taking care of the birds and do an amazing job with it as well!  There are also quite a few undergrad interns and then the shift supervisors who keep everything organized!  After the volunteer meeting, the "vet team" which included Erica, myself plus any other veterinary students who were visiting, would help with morning treatments.  After routine treatments, we had a list of birds that needed specific vet checks that we worked through, staying inside for the birds that were still in hospital and outside for the birds that were in flight cages or outside pens.  Most of these outdoor birds were a little closer to being released (which is usually code for "harder to catch and handle".  After we had worked through these, we generally took a lunch break.  Afternoons, a lot of the time, were spent doing veterinary checks on new admits as well as necropsies on any of the birds that died unexpectedly.  In the evenings, we helped with all the medical treatments again and were usually done by 7 pm.  On days that Erica wasn't working, I spent more time just helping out where ever it was needed.  On those days, I spent a lot of time caring for the sick raptors and piscavores.  My favorites were the juvenile Screech Owl with a broken wing, the young Kestrel with panosteitis-like lesions, the trio of juvenile Green herons, and the Great Blue Heron.  During those days, I also spent a lot of time helping out however I could; there were always plenty of dishes to be done, birds to feed, and cages to clean!

The little trio of Night Herons... they kind of looked like muppets :)

Tri-State is also an oil spill center, so they have a team of volunteers and employees who are on call 24 hours a day to respond to oil spills, both locally and all over the world.  In cases where there is a big oil spill, this team travels to the site and spends days, weeks, or months caring for the oiled animals and training local staff.  Other times, animals are sent to Tri-State for care; the stories of having over 100 animals brought in for care are pretty amazing!  But they are also available 24-7 for local, small scale spills that don't even make the news. While I was at Tri-State, we got in a handful of Canada Geese that had been coated with oil.  Because they came in after everyone had left, I got "called in" to help do their intake exam at around 10 pm one night.  On that first night, we got pictures of all the birds, took samples of the oil, gave them IV fluids, Vitamin E, oral fluids, etc.  The next day, they all got washed, a process that takes at least an hour from start to finish!  The birds then stayed in house for a few days before being released again. 

 Here are a few pictures from my time there!

One of my favorite patients; a little Screech Owl with a broken wing.  He had a pin placed in his bone that was removed one of my last days there... After a few more days of having his wing wrapped, he was ready to start flying!

Orthopedic surgery in songbirds is simplified by the fact that we can use sterile needles as pins to hold together broken bones.  These pins stabilize the bone while it heals and allows a bird with a broken wing to fly again! 

One of our smaller patients; this guy had an infected foot that needed soaking twice a day.  The bath was bigger than he was, but it worked!

Another one of the juvenile Bald Eagles.  Three of these guys are in one of the flight cages, just waiting for fall when they can be released with other adult Bald Eagles who can teach them how to hunt.  While in the flight cages, we place "bumpers" on their wings so that they don't hurt themselves if they run into a wall while they are flying around.

Eagle Cam!  The three Bald Eagles can be watched from afar!

Three little baby birds in the incubator.  When little ones come in, they have to be fed every 20 minutes!  It's a full time job when we're busy, and there are a lot of little ones.  As they get older, they can be fed less frequently and moved out of the incubator!

Just Booked A Flight!

So I'm super excited right now, as I just bought my flight (and made official) my upcoming rotation at the American Fondouk Animal Hospital!  The American Fondouk is a non-profit veterinary group providing free veterinary care to the working animals in the medina of Fez, Morocco.

For those of you that don't know, I've been to Morocco three times and absolutely love the country.  Although I haven't been to Fez before, the ponies in Marrakesh work so very hard and rarely get the care they need.  For many of the owners, these little ponies are their livelihood, and if they are sick or injured, the family goes hungry. 

I'm really excited to get a chance to visit Morocco once again, this time to spend some time giving back to a country that has meant so much to me over the past few years.  I'm also of course looking forward to learning a lot about equine medicine in the process!

My trip isn't until December, but here's the website of the hospital just in case anyone is curious! American Fondouk Website

Great Horned Owl Release at Tri-State Bird Rescue

So there is certainly more coming about my two weeks at Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, but during the first of my two weeks there, I got a chance to help out and take photos of the release of one of our birds, a Great Horned Owl.  This guy had been with us for a few months; he had been found sick and unable to fly in the early spring.  He's had a very slow recovery; for a while they were unsure if he was going to make it.  He started out indoors in a small cage where he could be monitored closely twice a day and was then moved outside into a larger cage.  The last step before release is to be moved into one of the flight cages, a much bigger cage with room for the large birds to actually fly and to make sure that he can catch live prey.  Finally, it was finally deemed time to be released! 

After contacting the people that found him (most adult birds are returned to their home environment so that everything is familiar when they are released) and arranging a time to bring him out, the next steps were to catch him out of his flight cage (easier said than done), band him (for identification purposes in case he is ever caught again), and drive him out to his home to let him loose!

First, here's a few pictures of this handsome fellow in his flight cage!














We started with a box, a towel, some raptor gloves, and two nets.  Once the birds are healthy, it's a lot harder to catch them than it was when they first arrive, sick and unable to fly, especially since this guy was smart enough to hang from the ceiling out of reach of our nets.


















Finally we got a hold of him and gently was able to move him out of the net and into a towel and then a box, careful to avoid his sharp talons and beak!


























 Next we brought him inside to band him.  Banding is a federally regulated process, so that birds can be identified no matter where they are found in the USA.  The bird's leg is carefully measured to find the right sized band, and then put on carefully and filed down to get rid of any sharp points.

Then he was ready to go!  His home was about a half hour away, so he was loaded back into his box and driven to the farm where he had been found a few months before.  Despite the fact that he hadn't been there for months and had not been free to fly any great distance for that whole time, he didn't miss a beat.  The box was gently tipped over, opened, and out he came!  His feet didn't even touch the ground- he just took off into the trees on the other side of the property!

It was really beautiful to see; he was a gorgeous bird that needed months of care and rehab to be released, but watching him fly away certainly makes all of that worthwhile! 


Next up, a more complete description of my rotation at Tri-State!

The next few rotations...

So after my trip to Nebraska, I came back to UPenn for my next few rotations... It's been a whirwind few months, so consider this the highlight reel!

First off was Emergency and Critical Care at New Bolton Center, so as you can imagine, we saw all the emergencies that came into the hospital as well any of the colics or diarrhea cases.  It was a busy two weeks with lots of overnight on-call shifts!  We saw our fair share of equine colics, some of the surgical and some of them able to be medically managed.  We also had a foal come in with septic joints that we treated; here is a picture of a septic joint treatment. 

  

The joint was flushed each day with sterile fluids and infused with antibiotics.  These were intensive but rewarding treatments for us, as our little foal kept improving over the week and got to go home!  We also had a few goats, ponies, and miniature horses join us for a visit.

Next rotation was Small Animal Radiology.  It was a great rotation for learning, as we spent hours every day looking at radiographs and trying to analyze them.  In the afternoons, we learned to take good radiographs and had few labs (like an ultrasound lab) to get more comfortable using all the equipment.  It was a great rotation!  Here's a photo of our fake dog that we got to practice our technique on. 

  

I have to say, he was a little easier to work with than many of our patients!  And here's Casey manning the controls! 

Definitely one of the highlights of the rotation was getting to "drive" the ultrasound machine.  We brought a few of our personal critters in as volunteers and each of us got a chance to scan their abdomens.

  

 In radiology, we also do all the CT scans and the MRIs for the hospital, so we gained a little bit of experience with these as well.

 

Next up was Small Animal Surgery.  After having a pretty kind schedule on Radiology (8 am to 6 pm with some weekend duties), Surgery took a little bit of getting used to!  Morning treatments needed to be done by 7 am or 8 am (depending on the day) and after a long day in surgery or in appointments, we were then responsible for all of our evening treatments; 12 hour days were the norm, but my longest was a shift from 6 am until midnight, which was a little rough, especially the next morning!  Despite the long hours, I was on with a great group of students and clinicians, and we learned and saw a lot!  Some of the surgeries in the hospital are being done laparoscopically, so we got a chance to see quite a few of these.  Here's a picture of one of these surgeries being done!  

 

We also had quite a few other surgeries including a few orthopedic ones, some spays and neuters, wound repairs, and some thoracic surgeries.  Overall, it was an exhausting and intense but great rotation!

There's no rest for the weary though!  Moving on to Dermatology and a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep while learning a LOT about skin diseases in dogs and cats!  I don't have any pictures from Derm, but we treated our share of allergies, ringworm, ear disease, etc over the course of the two weeks.  Highlights definitely included a middle ear flush, skin biopsies, and allergy testing, as well as getting a chance to hang out with all the awesome Derm people!

Next up: Small Animal Emergency Service!  Emergency is always a surprise... Just when you think you've seen it all, something ridiculous walks through the door! Days are usually slow and boring or insanely busy, so you try to be prepared but have to be read to roll with the punches!  I loved this rotation, and am very excited that I'm taking it again in over the Christmas holiday and in the spring. 

After ES, I headed to New Bolton Center (back in Kennett Square) for two rotations. First up was Medicine followed by Large Animal (read: mostly horses) Reproduction.  They were both great rotations.  Medicine was super busy the first week, and most days looked like this:
? to 8 am: Do treatments and write SOAPS for all patients (I had three) (? means anytime between 5 and 6, depending on the morning)
8 am to 9 am: NBC rounds (different topics each day ranging from radiology to pathology)
9 am to 10 am: Medicine rounds (went over each of our cases)
10 am to 11 am: Take care of my clostridial myositis cow (the best cow in the world) who needed flushes of her leg followed by walks/grazing outside
11 am to 4 pm: Doing all treatments for our patients, usually involving eye meds every two hours plus comfort checks for everyone PLUS taking any new appointments, of which there were a few every day WHILE still trying to attend other appointments so we could actually learn something
4 pm to 5 pm: Teaching rounds ranging from neurology, swine medicine, antibiotics, etc
5 pm until finished: Treatments of all patients again, including lovely cow, which usually got finishing between 7 pm or 8 pm at night
8 pm to 9 pm: eat something, shower, and go to bed



THEN, there were on call shifts and treatment shifts on top of that; getting called in to do treatments from 1030 pm to 1 am after a full day was definitely at the bottom of my list of "fun things at NBC".


Despite the crazy schedule, Medicine was great. We had so many interesting cases including a few neurologic horses, blind horses, my favorite cow of all time, a pig with a broken leg, a sheep with a PCV of 7, etc, etc, etc. 


With very little chance to rest (I did treatments the last Sunday night of the two weeks from 6 pm to midnight), I jumped right into Reproduction, another simply awesome rotation.  All the awesome folks in the repro service take teaching very seriously, so they have labs scheduled for us every day and even have a herd of mares that we work with on a daily basis to improve our repro skills including rectal palpation, ultrasound, artificial insemination, uterine flushes, etc, all the while monitoring these horse for changes in their estrus cycle.  The rest of our days were filled with procedures on client mares; we got a chance to be a part of embryo transfer, artificial insemination, semen collection, and more!  Here's a photo of our beautiful teaching mares in the pasture; these ladies have a very lucky life!

And here's an (albeit) terrible photo of me right before I inseminated my first mare!

 

And a much better shot of Candice and Ashley doing the same!

 

And here is a little embryo that "we" made; one of the students inseminated the mare, then together we flushed it out of the mare 8 days later!

After this rotation, I headed to Tri-State Bird Rescue- stay tuned for an upcoming blog entry!