Wandering Wildlife Vet

Week one of a two week, two part update! I didn’t mean to wait this long to post but I feel like I blink and weeks have gone by. I’ve had a really great time here and have gotten to see a lot. My family is finishing up packing and they start their journey here in 10 days! I can’t believe how fast time has gone. This trip has always felt like such a distant thing but now it’s really almost here. Chan and Trevin got here about a week ago and man it is so so nice to have some familiar faces around. I’ve even started to say slang from home again that I haven’t used in months😂. It’s really incredible getting to share this with them and I hope they enjoy it as much as I want them to. Now to what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, starting with May 6.

Monday morning I went with Dr. Klopper to what we thought was a cesarean section on a dairy cow. However when we got there, we found a cow in the middle of giving birth with the calf sticking out. The staff told us that the calf had died from being in the birth canal for an extended period of time. It had a bent leg that was causing it to get stuck on the cervix as it was trying to be pushed out. We tied ropes and chains around the leg to dislodge it. Once the leg was free, we were able to easily pull the calf out. Luckily, mom will survive but will be in a little bit of pain for a few days. After lunch, Klopper took me up to his farm in the Soutpansberg Mountains. It is a beautiful piece of land including some of the smaller hills. He plans to build a number of chalets throughout to entertain guests.

We started on Tuesday at 5 am. We had to go back to see the snake-bite dog because he had chewed his stitches out. Klopper decided it would be best to take him back to the clinic so that we could keep an eye on him (and the stitches) while he healed. We waited until we were back at the clinic to restitch the wound but it looked much better afterwards. After lunch, we headed to another farm to dart some nyala to move into a boma (barn type area) before they were moved to another farm. Unfortunately, we only got one nyala darted and into the boma before it was too dark to keep working. We ended up having a braai with the owners and doing some karaoke! We got back to Klopper’s house around 2 am.

Wednesday was a public holiday for the elections here in South Africa which meant we got the day off. I took advantage of sleeping in after the late night we had before. A new volunteer, Alicia from Australia, arrived yesterday while we were out so I showed her around and explained how things would go.

Thursday morning we went with Barend to test out his new ultrasound machine. Our first stop was his farm close to town where he keeps some sheep. He ultra sounded the 3 ewes and all three were pregnant. Then, we went to a piece of property where he keeps some of his cattle and palpated them to determine if they were pregnant. From feeling, he thought that 2 of them were very, very early in their pregnancies. After lunch, we went with Freddy to dehorn some cattle. I had never seen this before because a lot of our cows have been bred not to have horns. Basically, they cut off whatever portion of the horn is there and then cauterize the horn bud so it won’t grow back. It has to be done when the calves are quite young because a sinus forms inside the horn that can become infected if exposed through dehorning.

On Friday, our first stop with Barend was a buffalo bull that needed to be TB tested before it could be moved to a new farm. They test buffalos with skin tests that compare the reaction of the “control” (avian complex found in the soil) and the bovine form (disease causing), the same way we tested the cheetahs. Similarly, the test will need to be read in 72 hours. Once we got back to the clinic, we went with Klopper to see a calf that had a large swelling on it’s leg. The swelling was caused by a previous fracture to the femur that had healed on its own and formed a large callus and scar tissue area around it. Unfortunately since the bone had already healed, there was nothing that could be done for it so it will have a limp for the remainder of its life.

We spent the weekend with Klopper’s family at the farm in the mountains! We did some hiking, reading, and a lot of relaxing. We also fed the sable and buffalos that Freddy is breeding there. There was no cell phone service which was nice to force us to disconnect from the outside world and just chill. The views are beautiful and the food they made for us was spectacular!

Before we left for the weekend, I found out that my family dog at home, Taz, was very sick😔. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year before but his condition was deteriorating. I hoped nothing would happen to him while I was away from service and out of contact range but I tried not to worry.