Surgeries, milking, powerwashing, swine farm, tail bleeds, and heat waves!

These last few weeks have flown by-it's hard to keep track of everything that has happened! The heat wave last week may also have made my memory a little fuzzy!

The highlight of every day still is spending time with Dr. Currey and the fourth year students he brings out on clinical rotation. I can confidently say I am getting better at hearing pings, rectally palpating, performing ultrasounds on pregnant cows and heifers, performing tail bleeding, and giving fluids and injections! Two weeks ago was quite the experience hooking up the trailer to the farm's truck and backing it up and loading a cow onto it and driving her (by myself-yikes!) to the vet school. I then got to scrub in on her surgery where we discovered the reason she had been off feed was because her cecum was impacted. Not only did I get to practice my aseptic technique, but I was also able to put my hand inside the abdomen and palpate the liver up to the diaphragm and then reticulum with the magnet on its ventral surface and then feel the heart beat and blood rushing through the diaphragm! It made me very excited to start surgeries this fall.

In addition to veterinary related work, I have helped fill silos recently and have learned more about the cutting and proper storage of hay. In addition I have become an "expert" powerwasher washing everything from barn fans, manure scrapers, half hutches and pens, and the milking parlor twice a week. Needless to say after being completely coated with various things from powerwashing I will not be investing in one in the near future.

I still am getting up early twice a week to help with morning milkings and have become better at learning the "milking routine" and hop into help wash and wipe teats and apply milkers whenever I can. I also have become the official colostrum tester and bottler and have learned a lot about the importance of colostrum quality and proper testing and storage. I continue to feed calves several times a week and always get a kick out of their personalities and the funny things they do. Also, I have become more involved in health monitoring and administering antibiotics and medication to research and sick cows along with hormone injections when needed in the reproduction program. Last week I was able to assist with the tail bleeding of almost 200 cows. The most I usually do in a day is 10-15 cows so after a morning of helping bleed that many cows my arm was a little sore!

I still am continuing to learn a tremendous amount daily about the operation of a dairy farm and am continuously amazed by the dedication and commitment of the farm manager and various employees.