AI Clinic

Over the weekend I attended a certification class on how to artificially inseminate cows. Yup, breeding cows minus the bull. Let me assure you, it’s a lot easier having a bunch of bull around; let me walk you through the process:

1. First and foremost, wear clothes you are willing to get filthy. I mean way more dirty than you could ever imagine. Clothes that you’d be okay to smear cow shit all over and stain forever.

2. Prepare your AI gun which looks like an extended metal coat hanger. The semen straw in the liquid nitrogen storage container must be thawed without touching it or taking it out of the tank. Once this is accomplished, it must be thawed at precisely 95°F water in a thermal mug for 45 seconds. Then stroke your AI gun to warm the metal; not doing so kills your spermies. Wipe your semen strawoff gently with a paper towel and pop it into your gun. Cut the top off and place the “sheath” over the entire gun to hold the straw in place. Now your gun is loaded and ready to go. Put your gun full of semen (and here’s the good part) down the front of your shirt tucked into your pants to keep it warm. (Don’t worry mom, I’m not pregnant.)

3. Now you need to get a really really big glove. No really, a glove that goes over your entire arm up to your shoulder. (Seam side inward for the cow please.) It’s also a good idea to clamp your glove to your collar with something like forecepts. (They chose not to inform us of this on the first day, SO our gloves fell and are arms were covered in …)

4. Get a second, normal glove for your right hand and shove a bunch of paper towels into your pocket. Walk over to the industrial sized container of KY and pump enough out to smear over your left (gloved) arm and hand. The more the better.

5. Find a cow in heat. This is generally easier if someone supplies you with one.

6. Shove your entire left arm up the cow’s butt. The cow will poop on you at this point. If you press down, she’ll pee too.

7. Feel around (blindly) for internal female parts through her rectum. It’s been likened to an electric cord with a turkey neck in the middle. I assure you this is not accurate and near impossible to find. It gets worse.

8. Poke the AI gun that you’ve been warming in your shirt into the cow’s female parts at a 45° angle, and once in, go straight (0°) until you hit a dead end.

9. Wiggle the turkey neck around the AI gun with your left arm in the squirming cow’s rectum until it goes through. Talk about impossible.

10. Now that you’re “in” (the uterine body) unload the spermies into the cow. Pull the AI gun out, and hope you don’t have to “do it” again in 3 weeks. (FYI: Cow’s cycle every 21 days, humans cycle every 28 days.)

Alternate method: BUY A BULL and let him do all the work. I see this as a two fold benefit: the cow enjoys the bull more than she enjoys you no matter how skinny your arm is, and you don’t have to shove your arm up a cow.

Honestly it really wasn’t so bad. I’ve done similar things to horses to preg check; cows are just messier. Have to say, my whole body ached the first day; don’t even want to imagine how the cows felt. My first day was unsuccessful with 5 or 6 cows (we had 20 cow options) over 6 hours. The second day, another 6 hours, I was able to get 3 done I think. Sufficed to say I’ll be charging a lot for this service if your not my really good friend. The guy that taught the course (from Select Sires) said guys who do this for a living take ~30 seconds per cow! And get paid $7 per cow! Personally, I think that sounds great, although I’m sure with practice I’ll get better.

Leap Year

We had school. I got my eyebrows waxed this morning though! Last weekend I cut my hair. It looks fab! Did I mention that if my veterinary career didn't work out I could work at Super Cuts?! I have a couple people (2) coming to me for hair cuts! They're guys so I don't think they really care, but they said I did a better job that the local barber who takes 2 hours to cut white people's hair (cuz they're not used to cutting it).

Mid Semester Break 3

Saturday I slept all day. Was so exhausted from a week of tests. Have another test tomorrow (Tuesday) so I haven't even been able to go to the beach all weekend.

Good news though: I got Salty's life jacket, so now she matches Rudder! And I can drag them both in the water while I snorkel. Exciting!

Also got my shipment of tea so I can be hyped up on caffeine while I study. Bought another blanket at a 7th semester sale, so I'm all huddled up with my blanket, heater, sweatshirts, etc in the campus library. Bartered for a coffee pot too so make the Godiva Hazelnut coffee I bought myself for Xmas. I mentioned it's been cold here right? Got down to 80F the other night. Freezing! How am I going to make it back in the states, ahem, frigid north!

It's warm today though, cept indoors! That's our tuition money at work I guess.

Fire!

Last night there was a huge fire in the cane fields. (Sugar Cane.) There are a lot of fires on island because the cane market was replaced by sugar beets, so the island can no longer make a profit. I've had a headache all day so after school I went home to take a nap. When I woke up the entire mountain behind me was on fire!!! A huge ring of fire! It looked exactly like one would imagine Hell. So cool! Sugar cane grows to be 8-12 ft tall, so imagine the flames! It sounded like crackling like popcorn and smelled like cotton candy. I ran up to my friends' apts up there and we all gathered to watch the cane fields burn... and pack their stuff in case their houses burned down. Two hours later I decided to run home and get my camera. Here is video of the fire (although it is much less impressive than the acutal fire).

Recent Happenings

My TAG (knock off or real, I have no idea) stopped working... so I lost track of time and forgot to write. JK, but my watch did stop working. The reason: I had a Kittitian change the battery, and the water proof seal was ruined. Water got in the watch, it fogged up, which sucked, then one day all the water droplets disappeared. On the flight from here to Miami, I reset my time and heard a snap. I don't know what it was, but the watch stopped. Later it started up again, and went through cycles or working and breaking. If I tapped it pretty hard, it would start working, but then the time would be off. I knew I should have gotten a cheap watch in Miami, but I thought fortunately we have duty free Port Zante.

I went to every store that could possibly sell watches on the island. The ones the locals buy are gold, full of fake diamonds, and not water resistant (and they are still pricey). The tourist shops tried to convince me that they'd give me a special price, cuz I was so pretty or nice or some other creative reason. I ruled out the over priced and ugly and came up with two options: Citizen Corso Eco Drive (MSRP=$225, SKB=$110) or Seiko Coutura (MSRP=$335, SKB=$190).

Neither watch will ever need a battery. The Citizen Eco Drive charges its battery from the sun, while the Seiko lack a battery completely able to run off the wearer's pulse and body movement. Such advances in technology!

While I really loved the Seiko because it was pink, I went with the Citizen because I figured I'd ruin whichever watch I got, so might as well get the cheaper one. It also had days of the week. Sometimes (like every day) I forget what day it is.

I acquired 2 cats and a dog over break... to make a total of 5 fuzzies in my one bedroom apt. BUT it wasn't my fault, remember I've adapted a "no pick up strays" policy. One of my really good friends didn't make it last semester. We actually lost 22 people out of our class of 91. The bummer is that a lot of them really had the personality to be vets, they just had one thing or another "happen" back home. A few were allowed to repeat the semester, but many are looking at transferring to St. George's on Granada. So I end up with this dog and these two cats... and the dog hated my landlord who happened to be on island during the break.

So I posted an ad: "Dog needs home ASAP! Student had to leave island and couldn't take her. Roux is a great dog w/o personality problem, ~10mo old. Hasn't chewed anything in my place up yet (and I've had her for almost 1 month!) Comes with crate, food, leash, collar, all shots, microchipped, deworming, spayed, everything. Weighs ~40lbs, almost solid black with a few white hairs. Really great dog, I have 5 animals in my 1 bedroom apt so I can't keep her. (Free of course.)" Found her a home the next day, pfew!

Unfortunately, I've decided to keep the cats. They are Batik (formerly Miss Puddy) and Mango. Miss Puddy got knocked up, so I couldn't justify calling her Miss with her son, Mango running around. This is how we figured it out: my friend picked up a seemingly 3mo old stray kitten-- Miss Puddy (Rule #1: don't pick up strays), and like a good owner, dewormed and vaccinated her (Rule #2: don't vaccinate pregnant animals), so she aborted 2 kittens and had Mango who is "special."

Amitraz Overdose

Do I have a really dumb dog! You have to understand that living down here you have to contend with all these obscure tropical diseases. Things you don't see in the states. And thus I keep a tick collar on the dogs in addition to a topical flea and tick control and an internal heartworm and nematode control.

Saturday sometime Rudder ATE Salty's brand freakin' new $43 tick collar. It's not like he's a puppy and doesn't know any better; he's 5 years old now. Picture me not thrilled.

I didn't know he ate it. I noticed Salty's tick collar was gone a few hours after I put it around her neck. She kinda has a pin head so I figured it just slipped off and it would turn up sooner or later. These are Amitraz collars good for 3 months and the only thing that is effective against the tick on island that carries Ehrlichia canis. While treatable, Ehrilichia is something I'd rather avoid, along with the other miscellaneous tick-borne diseases.

Massive stinky diarrhea in my shower was the first tip I had that Rudder was sick. Disgusted, I cleaned it up. About an hour later the vomiting began. Puke #2 had part (~1 inch) of tick collar in it. I call a few colleagues (ahem, vet students) then the vet on emergency duty. Rudder was obviously ill but not "on death's door" sick, so I didn't want to bring him in and disturb anyone if we could wait it out. Amitraz is rarely fatal in dogs (not so in kitties and bunnies) but clinical signs related to overdose include ataxia, bradycardia, diarrhea, and vomiting. All of which Rudder was displaying (as per Plumb's starting on pg 48).

Tried some hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting (don't try this at home), which was fruitless since he had already vomited up his stomach contents. Five vomits and 2 diarrhea's later, with the last diarrhea being entirely mucosoid with small clotts, I bring him in to get charcoaled. We also administered a shot of atipamezole (if I remember right) to counter the tick collar's effects just in case. Poor guy looked so sick, not critical, but definitely feeling icky.

We weren't sure if the shot or charcoal would do anything, but by morning Rudder was back to his normal self, so it was well worth the $150EC. We (Rudder, Salty, and I) spent the day at the beach getting a tan. I buried Salty in the sand, with Rudder's help, and turned her into the Sphinx. School starts tomorrow (3rd semester) so I'm heading to bed now.

Happy New Year!

One more year down, another to go. 2007 was a pretty miserable year, hopefully 2008 will be better. So far it's been a great start.

Spent the day at the beach. Have a little research project going on. Feel relaxed and ready for school to start. Also been picking up my classmates at the airport, and it's nice to see everyone again.