Green, Lime, and Clover

Wow. So I hadn't realized how behind I am. A lot can happen in six days. Last Thursday we had a Holstein bull come in from Select Sires and he was the most massive animal I have ever seen in the hospital. At 2,600 pounds, he was at least 5 feet from the top of his withers to the floor of his chest. He was giant. We also had a large Boer buck named Golgotha who presented for lameness in his stifle. The name peaked my interest and I had a conversation with the owner about it. Apparently they try to name all of their goats after people, places, or verses in the Bible as a conversation starter at shows which I think is really cool. He mentioned another buck they had named Crown of Thorns and a doe named Esther 2:15.

So Green, Lime, and Clover are three of our patients right now, which I find amusing. Granted, green and lime are the color of their ear tags and not their actual names (these sheep have no names), but I find it comical that we have a color theme going. Green came in for lameness and Lime had a rectal prolapse that we fixed last week. Clover is the mother of a baby alpaca that had a fractured tibia that we fixed yesterday. Oh yes, yesterday...

So Sunday I was on call starting at 8:00 am. I got a phone call at 9:45 am to come in for emergency surgeries. Our first surgery was a goat with a broken cannon bone. Clover's baby was our second surgery. And then our third surgery was a fair hog with a rectal prolapse. By the time it was all said and done, we left the clinic at 7:45 pm. It made for a very long day, but overall it was rewarding.

Today we had treatments on our patients in the hospital and then we saw a Brown Swiss dairy cow with enlarged lymph nodes. On rectal palpation, it was amazing to feel the huge football sized lymph nodes inside her body. Definitely abnormal. On our physical exam, I also got to hear a "ping" due to the amount of gas in the rumen. That was pretty cool too. We did a biopsy which sadly confirmed our suspicion of lymphoma. Unfortunately it's the end of the line for this cow.