No more large animals!

My sole week of large animal rotation came to a close at 11:30 am today. Finally!

No, really, it was okay. I did end up surviving, and it wasn't even that bad. In fact, sometimes it was even fun.

I am still really uncomfortable around horses, although less so than I was a week ago. They are just so huge and flighty and unpredictable and easily spooked and strong. Plus they can fall on you, or kick you in the head, or bite you.

Now, cows and sheep, I like those guys a LOT better. (However, I have to keep reminding myself that all of the ovines/bovines we worked with over the last 2 days were sedated, so I guess that might be a factor.)

Highlights of Thursday and Friday's food animal experience include: drawing blood from a cow's tail; drawing blood from a sheep's jugular vein; extruding a ram's penis; successfully placing a halter on a cow; and doing a rectal exam on a cow.

It's really funny to think about the differences between small and large animals when it comes to something as simple as moving them around. For example, it has taken us a solid hour each morning to bring the 5 Holstein cows and 3 rams (of indeterminate breed but obvious gender) in from the outdoor pens, and get them situated in the food animal barn in an indoor pen (the rams) or individual mobile stocks (the cows).

Cows are generally pretty predictable in their movement. They have a "pivot point" at which point they will walk past you, i.e. you start out walking towards the cow, and she will back up a little as you get really close, but as you pass her shoulder or so, she'll jump forward and start walking a bit. That's a heck of a lot easier than trying to push or pull.

Sheep are hilarious. They always want to be together, together, together. Our 3 rams loved to bury their faces under each other or go hide in the corner together. Sheep have such a strong flock instinct that if you try to separate one, it will pretty much freak out. Even taking one sheep 10 feet away from the other 2 in the same pen is a struggle (till you drug them).

I'm glad that I was forced to take this one week of large animal rotation, just for the learning experience. But I'm equally glad that it's over and I can soon go back to small animal surgical anatomy, small animal internal medicine, small animal anything!