I was really looking forward to my Production Animals Rotation and hoping that we would get lots of hands on opportunities with the large animal species that I love working with.

We started the week with a couple of days in the classroom talking through a mastitis case, a reproduction problem on farm, how to get a job in rural practice, etc.

One of the best days during this rotation was when we went to the cattle yards at uni and practiced doing tail vein blood draws, epidurals, inverted L blocks, and paravertebral blocks. The ‘blocks’ are a procedure that the vet usually does prior to surgery where an injection of anesthetic solution is put over nerves & tissues in order to block feeling to that area.  They are a very common procedure in cattle medicine so I am glad we had the opportunity to practice them. We were also able to practice rectal exams & pregnancy diagnosis again. None of the cattle were pregnant.

Wednesday is often everyone’s favourite day. In the morning we visit an abattoir and in the afternoon we go to a chocolate factory. I really enjoyed the abattoir visit; it was a sheep processing facility that produced halal meat. We started at the packing end of the plant where all the cuts of meat in boxes are stored in chilled rooms and packed for shipping. The Australian’s got to experience going into a -20C and -40C freezer. It was entertaining. Then we proceeded up the processing line to where the sheep were stunned and killed. Then we visited the yards outside where the sheep are held when they arrive at the abattoir prior to processing. I really enjoyed this experience because I am interested in food production and a vet’s role in how we are involved in the production of safe, efficient, tasty, humane food.  This is a sensitive topic for a lot of people and I like being educated and involved. In the afternoon we went to the Great Ocean Road Chocolate Factory. It was meant to be a visit to a food processing facility…. I think the university could have picked a better location like a feed mill, or a milk processing plant, but I got free chocolate–so I’m not complaining!  We got to wander around the show room and then went to the back for a special chocolate tasting and spoke with a chocolatier about his techniques and favourite things to create. Some of the chocolate we tried included Australian bush flavors which were really tasty!

Any day at the chocolate factory is a good day!

We had a fantastic opportunity to do both vasectomies and castrations on rams at the university. In the real world you wouldn’t do both procedures on the same animal because they are required for different reasons. The sheep were anesthetized and resting in a shepherds chair. We worked in partners and were set off to calculate our own drug doses, complete an exam, and get the surgery going. There were other vets around to help us when we got stumped. It was a really fun experience, everything went well and we went back at the end of the day to check on our patients and make sure they were doing fine.

Jess demonstrating how the shepherds chair works

On one of the days we hopped in a van and drove out a few minutes to a nearby farm to see some sick cows. The first cow had been lame a week ago but looked much better today.  Another heifer looked like she was either walking on her tip toes or dragging them along; after watching her walk around the yards & lifting her feet up we diagnosed her with contracted tendons. She was likely born with them & either they weren’t fixed when she was a calf or they got a lot more significant as she grew older. The third cow we saw was quite skinny & sickly looking. I could FEEL her heart murmur without even using my stethoscope, that’s how impressive it was! She had already been treated a week ago and was not improving, it was decided that she would likely go for post mortem next week if she continued going downhill.

Another day we drove out to a very large sheep farm on a gorgeous property! We stopped and watched someone who was a contracted sheep ultrasounder. He had his own little trailer that he sat in and pregnancy scanned sheep through their flank. His ultrasound probe was different than I have seen before–it had water that sprayed out of it constantly so they he wouldn’t have to waste time by reapplying ultrasound gel. It took him appx 1-2seconds per sheep to determine if she was pregnant and if she was having a single or twin! We all watched completely astonished for a short time. We walked through the woolshed from the 1800s and then spent the afternoon talking about epidemiology cases.

Alpaca farm day! Everyone was pretty excited about this too–because who doesn’t love an alpaca?! We got to practice catching alpacas (basically sneak-attack hugging them around the neck), ultrasounding them for a pregnancy diagnosis, and blood draws. We were also taught the traditional method of getting alpaca’s to sit down–I forget the proper word! You can tie their legs up underneath them and then they will sit calmly for you to perform a procedure or transport them. There was also a few males that needed to be castrated so we got to ‘share an alpaca’ and practiced our farmyard castrations.

This was a fun rotation and it makes me excited for some placements I have booked with large animal practices back home!

On the last day we had to give presentations—This is my group mates who brought a model cow all the way from the shed into the seminar room just for a demonstration!