5/28

This morning two of my classmates and I went with three doctors to check about 40 cows and heifers for pregnancy.  This gave me some more palpation experience which was nice.  For those of you who don't know, to check cows for pregnancy, most often a hand is inserted into the cows rectum.  When your arm/hand are in the rectum (yes, at times my entire arm is inserted into the cows hind end) you feel down towards the ground as the cows reproductive tract lies just below the rectum.  There you feel for fluid in the uterine horns, a baby (if the cow is far enough along in her gestation), or for various structures on her ovaries. 

This afternoon, one of my classmates and I went with one of the doctors to a pig farm where we helped castrate a 75lb male pig, helped pregnancy check 11 sows using an ultrasound, and learned how to trim pig hooves.  Because we had to knock the pigs out to trim their hooves, my classmate and I also got some experience in injecting drugs into the pigs ear veins.  When you look at a pigs ear, they often have good-sized veins in them.  These veins are often used for injections as they are the most readily accessible veins in pigs.