A good night's work.

Day 7. Knackered tonight. Did a TB test this morning, on over 220 crazy beef cattle. Each took a run up to the crush and attempted to crash through it. Every time there was an awful crash, and I thought more than once that the metalwork was about to disintegrate. I also got my hand smished against the crush by an angry Limousin cow when I tried to read her teeny-tiny metal eartag without forfeiting my skull's integrity. It's now an interesting shade of green (my hand, not the cow). We did get lunch afterwards though, which almost made up for the pain and the earache.

Also jagged eighteen ewe lambs with a drug to make them abort after a neighbours ram lamb got in with them and got a bit too friendly.

This afternoon we had a therapeutics tutorial that was very helpful - I want to do more stuff like that at Uni. I finished about 1715 and the other two went out on calls.

I was on call last night. I was hoping for a quiet night, given that it's been quiet all week. I was woken at 0330 by the duty vet, to go out to a ewe caesarean. By the time we got there, the crisis had passed and we were able lamb the ewe quickly and return to bed. I thought that would be it for the night, but another call came in at 0600 - a cow caesar. After that we had to treat some calves at the same farm, and it was after breakfast before I got in again.

Just my luck - none of the other students have had to get out of bed when they've been on call yet!

Day 3

Our first weekday of the rotation. I got to do lots today - trim feet, jag cows, put a cow down, and disbud calves. And we finished at 5pm. And I even managed to watch some TV tonight!

Luckily I didn't have to go out on any calls once I'd gone to bed last night. I did answer the phone once, but didn't have to get out of bed. Yay for distant farms!!

*Yawn*

End of Day 2.

Just back from a 3 hour farm call, lambing a ewe. We left behind a shellshocked ewe and two rather stunned lambs. This was my only callout on today's shift - but I'm on call tonight too.

Currently praying to the god of ruminants that they all behave themselves tonight - I'm tired!

Far from home

It's the end of my first day on our next rotation. Yes, I know it's a Saturday.

The next two weeks, we're seing practice with proper farm vets, doing proper farm-vetty stuff. We're staying in a nice hotel in the countryside, although the weather could do with some improvement. We arrived to two inches of snow, but this has since melted. I hope it stays away - going out to calls in the middle of the night isn't much fun when one has to wade through slush!

Luckily I'm not on call tonight, so I get to sleep.