Day 1 of my new life started at 5:30am. We were scheduled to leave at 6:00 to work 78 heifers. The work proceeded with little fanfare as we watched the sun come up over a north Brazos county ranch. Client's workspace was very suitable with good working pens and squeeze chute. Here is an old pic of Bruce demonstrating the use of a squeeze chute on his sister.
He seems to have the hang of it, huh?
I did collect a black and blue reminder to observe the presence of any horns. I learned this lesson while using my belly to hold the head of the heifer to the side for the applications of a bangs vaccination tag. Mostly, controlling the head is accomplished with the squeeze chute and little more is needed. Every now and then though, a bovine sees fit to throw its head around each time we come near it with hand, needle, or any other device which is not either momma cow's teet or a sweet patch of green grass. Now a heifer is simply a female calf yet to have been bred by a bull. So these, being heifers, are smaller than a typical cow, and are a little easier to manipulate. Nonetheless, they still outweigh me by several hundred pounds and contain plenty of power in their neck to throw me around...or in this case, punch me in the gut with a short horn at their will and pleasure. And I imagine this heifer would take great pleasure in the knowledge of my bruise.
I also had a brief standoff with another pissed off heifer which quickly deescalated with me climbing a fence.
Overall, I'm going to consider this par for the course and caulk it up as an overall uneventful morning.
The rest of the day consisted of typical regular shots on young fidos and kittys. I did get to watch a dog trip out on some sort of ADHD medicine, which is basically speed, of which the this curious canine enjoyed a whole bottle of. I guess momma will need to refill that prescription. I tell you what, that dog couldn't stop moving and made me see the appeal of such a miracle drug. Imagine the work I could get done! But prolonged observation made me realize that I would only move from one subject to another without actually getting anything done. That's not much different than the way I am now. His crash seemed pretty heavy also so I put the wonder drug quickly out of my head.
In the late morning, I branded another heifer with a nice looking "14" (if I do say so myself.). I've gotten very little branding experience and was pleased with my impromptu performance.
Saturday was meant to be my 2nd day but Audrey's attendance at a county wide 4H officers meeting required me to play soccer mom of sorts. Despite my return to the clinic past the normal Saturday closing time of noon, I still found myself in the midst of vet work as we jumped into emergency on-call mode.
-Quick! To the batmobile!!!!-
First, I was pulled out on a farm call to a goat dairy farm. A small outbreak of pneumonia was occurring and we spent an hour or so treating the little ones. I think if a man wanted to administer torture to another human being, he should stick the tied up victim in the middle of 100 goats who all seem desperate for attention. Those goats cry in such a why that could drive a man crazy in short order.
While at the goat asylum, we received another call about a lame dog. We met the client at the clinic and after taking X-rays (my first time to process by the way) the owner was informed that bone cancer was likely the culprit. Downer there.
All in all though, it was a pretty good first two days at your local rural vet clinic.
