Lambing Adventures

For two weeks during my Easter break I went with a fellow classmate and worked on a sheep farm near Kirkcudbright, Scotland.

Our trip started by discovering that the way we had been pronouncing Kirkcudbright (Kirk-cud-bright) was unbelievably wrong.  Apparently they ignore a bunch of the letters and pronounce it Kuh-coo-bree.  We drove through the Scottish country side and arrived at their farm to see fields filled with sheep.

We started work that first evening by basically being shown where everything around the farm was and how the farm worked.  We were served an incredibly tasty tea (Canadian translation = dinner) and pudding (Canadian translation = dessert).  Then it was off to bed to get some sleep.  Little did I know that the first night would be the only night I would get to sleep through the entire night!

For the rest of the two weeks we would have breakfast around 8am and start working after that.  We would generally work until 9 or 10pm with breaks for dinner (Canadian lunch), tea and if we were lucky a coffee break.  At night we would either be responsible for checking the lambs at 12am and 6am or 3am.  It was a lot of hard work and very little sleep but it was such a incredible learning experience.

Along with caring for sheep and lambs during lambing time I learned a lot of other things about sheep.

1. Sheep really like food

Feeding time for the ewes was always an exciting time.  Spreading the pellets for the group pens was quite a challenge.  The ewes would see you coming and jam up to the front of the pen so that once you were in the pen you had no where to go with the food.  I found you would have to fake one way and then dump the pellets the other way to have any chance of successfully spreading them.  They are also super aggressive with their food and have no problem pushing one another out of the way.  We decided we would run in with the buckets of food to try and catch the ewes off guard.  Except that then they started associating running with food so anytime anyone ran anywhere they would all start going crazy.

Feeding the ewes in the pens also involved some strategy.  You quickly learned which ewes had to be fed first.  Some of the ewes would climb the bars of their pen trying to get at the food.  That was scary because you were always worried they might step on their lambs when they climbed down.  Other ewes were less subtle and would just jump into another individual pen to get at food.

"Bucket Sheep" - Notorious for stuffing her head in food buckets while you are trying to spread the pellets

Did someone say food?

2. Sheep are flock animals.  When separated from the flock they are pretty unpredictable

I unfortunately learned this the hard way.  It was midnight and hailing when one of the few ewes that were left outside (and not due to lamb for another week I might add!) decided it would be the perfect time to start lambing.  At this point she had already had one lamb and was preparing to have another. The farmer wanted to get her inside before she had her second lamb.  So the farmer and I got her cornered.  She had two options, run between me and the fence and run between the farmer and the fence.  Well turns out she didn't like either of the those options.  She took one look at me, decided she could take me and ran full speed at me.  At this same time, the person holding the flashlight thought they heard something across the field.  So they turned their flashlight away from our cornered ewe.  When she put the flashlight back on the ewe, she was less than three feet from me running full speed.  I braced for impact but 90kg of ewe was too strong for me.  She blew me over backwards.  I did my best to slow her down and held onto her neck for a bit while she dragged me across the field but in the end it was futile.  She broke free.  So we called in more help and got her cornered and caught the second time.

She looks so sweet and innocent in this picture...

3. Sheep are tough

These ewes have their lambs and then immediately (for the most part) stand up and lick their lambs clean.  What human after a natural birth would be up for standing?

I think we found our toughest ewe during the second week.  She had started to lamb in the morning but she wasn't making any progress.  So the farmer decided it was time to intervene.  Normally pulling out a lamb that is in the wrong orientation or is just a bit to big for the ewe to push out, is well under a five minute task.  We were ten minutes into helping her and we were no closer to having her lambs out.  Both lambs were trying to come out at the same time.  So it was hard to figure out which lamb should come first and what legs belonged to what lamb.  As time went on, it was becoming less about the lambs and more about the ewe.  The farmer had become concerned with getting the lambs out (hopefully alive but as time was going on, it was looking less and less likely they would be alive) so that the ewe would survive.  After 15 minutes of manipulating the lamb, the first was born... and by some miracle alive!

We gave the ewe a five minute break so she could bond with her lamb and clean it up.  Then it was time to get the second lamb out.  10 minutes passed, no progress.  20 minutes passed, minimal progress.  It was in the right orientation but still not coming out.  30 minutes passed no progress.  At this point the farmer was getting very stressed.  For some reason he decided to let me have a go at pulling the lamb out.  Of the students there, I was the most experienced "lamber" with probably helping 10 lambs, 8 of which were straightforward and easy.... so all in all not very experienced.  So I worked at it for a for a while when all of a sudden the tension on the lamb gave way and it started coming free.  To this day I still have no idea what I did to get the lamb out.  We all expected this lamb to be born dead.  Lambs don't usually survive 10 minutes of being pulled, let alone 45 minutes plus.  But even more amazingly than the first lamb, she was alive!  So naturally for the next few days those lambs were treated extra special and were watched very very carefully

But what amazed me the most was after less than five minutes of us getting the second lamb out the ewe stood up and started cleaning her lambs!  We had hands inside of her pulling on lambs for the better part of an hour and all she needed was a few minutes to recover.  That is amazing.

Miracle Lamb Number 2!

4. Lambs are pretty darn cute

Don't need any words for this one.  Here are some cute lambs.

5. Not sheep related but... Scottish weather is very unpredictable

The first week we were there it was miserable.  It was cold, reaching almost freezing at night, crazy windy and raining a lot.  On, I think, our third day there the farmer asked me to check and count lambs in one of his fields.  So I set off.  As I was heading to the field dark clouds started rolling in.  Well, good thing I was essentially in a waterproof suit.  I started counting lambs.  I was supposed to count 12.  When I got to 8 it started hailing.  At first it wasn't awful.  But it progressively got harder and harder.  It was getting quite painful to be outside in.  So being probably a five minute run from any actual shelter I decided to take cover in a gorse bush.  And that's when I found the rest of the lambs.  They had the same idea as me but they had launched themselves into the bush and their fleece was all tangled so they were stuck.  So, while it was hailing, the lambs and I hung out in the bush while I freed them from the gorse.

The second week the weather was incredible. 15, sunny and no wind.  I could not have asked for anything better.

6. Also not sheep related but... Scotland is gorgeous

We were spoiled by the location of the farm.  My iPhone pictures do not do it justice.

Sunset with the Sheep and Lambs

Lambing was probably the hardest I have ever worked but I would do it again in a heartbeat!

I keep forgetting to blog

So I am apparently pretty terrible at remembering to post.  Since it has been so long since my last post I will make this one more of a photo blog.

My 23rd Birthday Cake.  Never too old for a fun cake

Exploring Calton Hill - Looking toward the Forth

From Calton Hill Looking Toward the Castle

Calton Hill

Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat from Calton Hill

The crocuses are up, it is spring in Edinburgh (This was in February!)

Sheep Herding Display

Teamwork!

Police Horses Patrolling the City (sorry the horses are in the shadows... didn't want to be too obvious taking a picture)

Cat sitting for a friend

Trying to decide if I am an OK person

The cat decided I am a good enough person to sit on

Yesterday a friend and I took a shift volunteering with the vet school teaching horses.  We went and groomed the horses, picked their hooves and turned them out onto pasture.  One of the horses had managed to get a rather large stone caught in his shoe.  After much effort they were unable to remove the stone.  They decided to take his shoe off since the farrier was coming to put one of his other shoes back on in a couple days anyway.  They let both my friend and I work on taking the shoe off, which for both of us, complete horse novices, was a lot of fun.  I definitely have a new found respect for farriers, it is tough work!

I am on Easter break right now.  On Saturday I leave for a town called Borgue in Southwest Scotland for a two week lambing placement.  Should be fun!

A museum, lots of wine and haggis, and board games (and some school...)

Two weekends ago a friend and I went to Dynamic Earth, a science type museum in Edinburgh.  It was a free weekend so we decided it would be the perfect time to go.  We waited in line for quite a while, which is to be expected when entrance to the museum is usually £10 and all of a sudden it is free.  You start your tour "travelling back in time" in a time machine to the time of the big bang, then you work yourself through the ages.  I did enjoy myself, but it was definitely geared more towards children.  We finished the tour off by watching a documentary called Supervolacanoes in the ShowDome which is a screen that domes over you and projects 360 degrees around you.  That was definitely my favourite part of the day.

Dynamic Earth (Salisbury Crags behind)

The following Tuesday the school held their Pre-Burns Supper.  Burns Night is a celebration of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns.  This involved lots of wine drinking.  They announced that over 300 bottles of wine were consumed... And to give you some perspective I'm guessing that at most there were 500 people there.  I thought having gone to university I had seen heavy drinking but they take it to a whole new level here.  They also served haggis with neeps and tatties (turnip and potatoes).  And the night was finished off with a chorus of Auld Lang Syne.

The piping of the Haggis

My haggis, neeps and tatties

The next day I got to help out and be a vet school ambassador and give campus tours to students who were being interviewed for next year.  I really enjoy giving tours.  I am so happy with my choice to go to Edinburgh so I love sharing my experience to this point with the interviewees.

And last night a few of us got together and played board games.  We started with Settlers of Catan.  I made a strategical error about my second move in since I had never played before and that pretty much ended my hopes of winning.  We finished up with Cards Against Humanity.  Everyone brought snacks to share.  I found and made a deadly simple recipe for chocolate peanut butter bars that turned out really well.

I have also been doing some interesting school stuff as well.  We had our first session on learning how to do the physical exam of a horse.  I definitely found that harder than learning to do a physical exam of a dog.  We also had a cardiology practical.  We got to listen to the heart of a live dog and start to learn where to listen to specific heart valves and what they should sound like.  We learned how to do CPR on a stuffed manikin dog and set up an Electrocardiogram.  Lastly we had some more practice reading X-rays.  We don't have our official class on radiography until next year but they are getting us started this year.  What I learned from that session was I am not too bad at reading lateral x-rays (when the animal was on its side for the x-ray), but I need some serious work for VD x-rays (when the animal is on its back).

Well back to studying, we have an in class exam coming up in a couple weeks time.

And it all starts again

I can't believe today is the end of my second week of classes back from Christmas.

A lot has happened since my last post.

The weekend before I went home, a friend and I went to Glasgow to see their Christmas market.  We decided to go skating which was so much fun.  Being Canadian through and through, skating is in my blood and it felt so great to skate.  The decorations in Glasgow were incredible.

What are these skates??

The view from the rink

View from the Ferris Wheel

 I flew home for Christmas which turned into quite an adventure.  After almost 24 hours of travel, a blizzard in Edinburgh (not really a blizzard by my standards but it was causing havoc), being told I didn't look enough like my passport in London and having to provide another piece of ID, being randomly selected for a pre-boarding screen in London, arriving to a Canadian quality blizzard in Toronto, resulting in us being stuck on the plane for two hours while they freed the planes that were stuck at the gates due to snow, I made it home!

Snow leaving Edinburgh

Flying into London

While I was home I completed a week of extramural cat and dog studies at Mississauga Animal Services.  All my cat and dog experience has come from a clinic setting so it was interesting to spend a week in shelter.  The rest of the break was spent with friends and family (including some very needed love with my pets).

Christmas at home

Hanging out with Mars

No place for me on the sofa!

Since arriving back to school I have had an exam, completed our renal and cardiovascular units and had a practical where we got to handle (or play with depending on your view...) calves.  This semester looks like it is going to be a busy one but it also looks really interesting.

It has been quite cold by Edinburgh standards the past few days.  Tuesday there was a lot of snow at campus.  Since they don't get snow here that much they panic at the sight of snow.  That resulted in my half an hour bus ride turning into an hour and a half due to wall to wall traffic.

The inch of snow that cause mayhem

Sunrise at campus looking over the Pentland hills

And today I have the day off.  The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, is visiting our school today, so to clear us out, almost none of the first and second years have classes.  They also sent us a bunch of rules of where we can and where we aren't allowed to be and we have to wear our student cards to prove we belong there.  As much as I think it would be interesting to see her, I think I will stay home to avoid the chaos.

Decorating for the Royal Visit

I have a life again!

For the past 3 weeks I have been studying (fairly relentlessly) for my animal body 2 exams.  But as of last Thursday they were finished and so I am free!

I have made the most of my three day weekend.  Friday morning I went down to Princes Street to see the Christmas market.  I love it down there.  It feels so festive.  I mostly just wandered and perused the craft stalls for future purchases.

One of the rows of stalls

View of the market and wheel

Friday night I had field hockey.  We had both a game and a practice.  And we actually won the game!  Prior to Friday we had only scored one goal all year so it was very refreshing to win. Since it was our last practice before Christmas break they decided to make it fun and hold a couple of mini competitions.  The first was a game of keep away.  You are in a circle with two defenders who try and knock your ball out of the circle.  And I won which was exciting.  The next one was a penalty shot competition.  After a bunch of people going and not scoring I decided to go and give it a try.  And somehow I managed to score.  But my competitive edge got the better of me because in my attempt to score I dove and as I fell managed to get turf burn across the back of my hand.  For anyone who hasn't experienced turf burn, it is like carpet burn but way way worse.  But on the bright side I won the penalty shot competition too!

Saturday a bunch of us tried to go to the Christmas market.  We went for a bit and got crepes but it was just so packed we decided to leave.  We went out to a restaurant for drinks and snacks instead which was lovely.

Very festive building

Sunday was mainly about relaxing.  In the afternoon a few of us went up Salisbury Crags to watch the sunset (we actually had sun for a change!).  But what was depressing is the sunset was 3:45pm... that is just too early in my opinion.  Sunday night we had a family dinner and made fajitas.  It was good food and great company.

Sunset looking toward the city

Sunset looking at the Pentland Hills

The moon and Arthur's Seat

And today we were back to school.  But it was a nice short day, only 3 lectures and none are examinable.  And they were all putting what we have learned so far into a clinical context so they were super interesting.  In the afternoon I went back to the market to do some shopping and I also wanted to see the market in the dark with all the lights.

Same view as the one above in the daylight

The Christmas Tree Maze

What is most exciting of all is it is less than 2 weeks until I fly home.  I am having a blast here but I really want a cuddle with my goldens :)

Creepy Creatures of All Sorts

Halloween I went down to The National Gallery to watch the Samhuinn Fire Festival.  Samhuinn is supposed to represent the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter and is held on the 31st of October which is roughly halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.

The Beltane Fire Society puts on a show every year.  It starts with a march, followed by a stage performance.  The stage performance involved a fight between the summer king and the future winter prince.  There are tons of performers dressed as all sorts of creatures and beings.

Wolfman? Part of the winter campaign 

Winter Fighting Summer

View of the roof of Waverly Station on the walk home

And this week we had our exotics handling class.  I had been both looking forward to this and dreading this.  Half of the handling involved mammals and half involved birds and reptiles.  My group started with the reptiles.  First was a tortoise.  No problem.  Hold it like a hamburger.  I can do that.  Next was the bearded dragon.  All right.  Not as easy as the tortoise, but this bearded dragon only had three legs so he wasn't moving too fast.  Third was the gecko.  Now geckos do this weird thing called autotomy when they get stressed.  Basically as an escape mechanism they will shed their tail in the hopes that the predator will go for the tail instead of them.  While I was holding the gecko, which was looking less and less pleased as he had just been passed around to 10 other people, all I could think was "Please don't lose your tail, please don't lose your tail!"  Fortunately there was no tail shedding.

Next animal... snake.  Now for anyone who knows me well,  you will know that I HATE snakes and I am terrified of snakes.  Animals should not be one giant spine.  They should have legs.  But I appreciate some people like snakes and I understand I need to lean to care for them (although I know there is not a chance I will ever treat snakes in my future).  As the 3.5 foot ball python was passed around, the pit in my stomach kept growing.  And then it was my turn.  I took the snake in my hands and its head turned toward me.  He gave me this look like "You have no idea what you are doing do you?"  And with that look I passed him on to the next person as fast as I could.  So now I know I can hold a snake if I have to, but I sure do hope that when my handling exam comes around I don't get examined on the snake.

The last animal in the first half was a pigeon.  We were taught a one handed hold that locks it legs and wings together so it can't fly away.  (I did have a momentary fear where I would be the one student who lets go of the pigeon and it flies away).  You can examine the pigeon with your free hand.  Or if you are like all of us animal deprived vet students, pet it while it stares up at you in confusion.  I actually quite enjoyed the pigeon.

The second half of the handling was much more enjoyable.  We handled, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits.  Much better creatures in my opinion.  Although the rats we were handling were albino (white with red eyes) which were a little creepy.

So from exotics handling I confirmed my suspicions that I am not a reptile person.  But when push comes to shove (aka handling exams in April) I will be able to handle them.

What I learned from my bacteriology labs

There are three mains things I learned from my bacteriology labs:

1.  Growing pure cultures of bacteria is a pain.  It takes a long time and it can be very finicky.
2.  Growing bacterial cultures smell.  A lot.
3.  When trying to identify an unknown bacteria, even if you follow all the steps right, you can still get the answer wrong.

Two weeks ago we had a series of 4 bacteriology labs.  The theme running through the 4 labs was to identify unknown bacteria from a urine sample, mastitic milk and an abscess. We were given a "road map" of tests we could run and a clue that one sample had two bacteria, giving a total of 4 bacteria to identify.  After culturing the samples over night after the first lab, we started on to the tests on day two.  The first problem was sorting out which culture had two bacterial species.  After much confusion and discussion with the lovely lab assistant we discovered that the culture plate which was supposed to have two bacterial species was overrun with one bacteria, leaving one sole bacterial colony about the size of a pen tip of the second type.  After incredible luck (and my lab partners very steady hands) we were able to culture the two species onto two different plates for the next lab.

The next incident occurred when we ran a test called a microbat test.  Essentially you read off colours to be either positive or negative from a bunch of reaction wells.  You enter those results into a computer and voila!  The computer spits out the genus and species of your bacteria.  The lab assistant looked at our results and suggested we run the microbat again (so essentially telling us our results were wrong).  My partner had run the first one, so I ran the second one.  Guess what?  We got the same results!  When it came time to discuss our results with the professor, we had identified three of four species correctly.  We explained our dilemma with the microbat test and he told us "That's bacteriology for you!  Even if you follow all the steps and perform them correctly it doesn't always work."  There was a prize to be won if you got all your bacterial species correct.  Although we didn't get them all right, the professor took pity on us and gave us a prize anyways.

Not a bad prize split between two people!

Although I ultimately did enjoy the bacteriology labs, I don't think veterinary bacteriologist will be high on my career list.