We're off!

This morning we will be leaving for our whirlwind trip around the North Island. There's lots on the agenda: Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World in Auckland, the Waitomo Caves, Tongariro National Park, Lake Taupo, & Rotorua. We have our own sets of wheels (courtesey of Dr. Jess), a guide book in hand, and of course an excellent map of NZ. We don't think we'll have opportunities to upload our adventures to the Blog, but we'll be taking lots of pictures for your later viewing pleasure. We return to Te Aroha Tuesday afternoon New Zealand time.

Thirty-two Years Together

Happy 32nd Anniversary to Jan & Dorine (our newly NZ adopted parents). Last night Jess & I shared a lovely anniversary dinner with Jan & Dorine at Chambers Bar & Grill in Morrinsville. Great food & company. Well wishes for many years to come.

The little ones

We don't want anyone to have a skewed view that only Jersey calves reside in NZ, here are some Freisians for your viewing pleasure.

Views of Te Aroha

On Tuesday morning, we hiked a bit of Te Aroha mountain with Dorine and went as far as Blad Spur, these were the views.

Calfeteria

All of the calves are born within a tight calving window and are fed in the paddocks from a variety of feeders. We like the calfeteria the best.


This is a homemade bucket feeder - same concept, less cost.


Groups of animals are called "mobs" - this is the calf mob, we think the term fits nicely.

On Friday, we went to Eden Garden, which sits on the slopes of Mt. Eden (one of the 48 volcanoes in & around the city of Auckland). From the gardens, there were beautiful views of the city and the camellias were in full bloom.

We don’t know what type of tree this is, but we both thought it was quite interesting.


We were fit for the challenge =-)

One of the many views we got of the city of Auckland. A few dormant volcanoes sit in the distance and there were cows grazing on the hillside. In NZ, it appears that agriculture and urban life can live in harmony

Here are some pink magnolias coming into full bloom – Jess consistently referred to them as the Mongolia’s.

The Week in Review

After a full weekend, we entered a week with a steady caseload. A typical day includes waking up in the early morning – yes Margaret truly is getting out of bed at 6:30 a.m. The day starts with a jog – we’ve discovered an amazing NZ off-road trail moments away from the house that winds up and down small hills through typical NZ bush. We don’t have any pics of the bush for fear of dropping the camera (because we’re moving so fast). This week has also brought some chilly mornings and some rain that makes the footing interesting, there has been some slipping & sliding but we’ve remained upright. We may have invented a new sport, sneaker mud skiing.

After breakfast (and coffee for Margaret), we make our way into the clinic. This week there have been a potpourri of cases: lame cows, down-cows, early lactation mastitis cases, uterine torsions, dystocias (improper positioning of a calf prior to delivery), metritis, liver failure, calving inductions, calf dehorning, hydrops, grass-staggers/tetany, cancer eye, allergic reactions, a dog castration, and a Cavalier King Charles who ate 100g of baking chocolate (yes, we induced vomiting). After watching the dog vomit 8 times, Jess again confirmed her desire to do only large animal work.

We have become pros at dehorning calves (or disbudding as the Kiwis call it). This involves laying the calves out flat with sedation, locally blocking their small horns, and burning the buds off. Dr. Amy has multiple burns on her arms while Margaret and Jess have escaped thus far with only small burns to their overgreen waterproof pants. It’s strange to see an entire group of calves all the same age & size out on pasture. We are also becoming skilled with assisting with calvings - we’ve both successfully placed a head snare and Margaret delivered twins all by herself on Monday.

We’re gaining our geographical bearings and we’ve been to some of the neighboring towns. On Tuesday afternoon, we traveled south of Morrinsville to perform a “grade bust!” After envisioning running into a dairy with guns blazing, we discovered that it was a milk quality evaluation/risk assessment for a producer that was close to being in violation with their milk company for somatic cell limit. Sigh … the guns will have to wait another week. After completing the QMPS rotation at Cornell, we both felt equipped to CMT an entire herd and collect milk samples from clinically infected quarters for milk culture. Our mission was successful and the grade bust was completed. One large problem the dairy was having was with the post-milking automatic teat sprayer. It was _supposed_ to spray the cows’ udders as they walked over and instead was spraying the following cow in the face. Only in South Africa does spraying something in the face prevent mastitis. An added bonus was that we got to see some amazing views from the milking shed, as it was positioned at the top of a long & winding tanker track (driveway).

There have been a steady flow of emergency cases in the evenings with Jan. He certainly is a master at calvings and we are learning under his tutelage. The hardest part of each call is following him while driving in the dark on the wrong side of the road. One evening found us trudging across a paddock with no flashlight, under the wide open sky, far from electricity or running water to assist a cow that was down & calving. And, as always, we continue to provide the farmers with comic relief as we clothes-lined ourselves on the electric fence on our way across the dark paddock. With our efforts, however, a live calf was born; our arms are growing stronger day by day.

We are still experimenting with the barbie and continue to make filling meals, this week lamb sautéed with an Indian sauce and schnitzel. Quote of the day on Thursday was Margaret’s farewell to Jan after finishing the calving in the dark paddock, “See you later, Jan, we’re off to bread our schnitzel.” We also purchased some Hokey Pokey ice cream, under the direction of Margaret’s Kiwi friend Chris – who now lives in Australia. Hokey Pokey flavored ice cream is incredibly sweet – but quite tasty.

One of the 3 veterinarians at the Te Aroha branch of the Animal Health Centre, Dr. Amy King (who hails from Canada and graduated from veterinary school on Prince Edward Island) has been assigned to perform all the calf dehornings (called disbudding in NZ). Jess & I have been taking turns going with Amy on disbudding calls. It’s strange for us Americans, to see ALL the calves within the same age range. This is a pic of the calves before we start.

Here are the wee-little-ones sleeping – drugs are a wonderful thing. In NZ, the disbudding protocol involves sedation and a local anesthetic blocks – it makes the work quite easy. The downside is that at each call we do between 30-80 calves.

Just yesterday the heifers that graze at the foot of the mountain moved into the paddock that borders our backyard. It’s soothing to hear the heifers munching away, so close by.

It’s commonplace in Te Aroha to have a lemon, grapefruit and/or mandarine tree(s) in your yard. We’ve got lemon trees - two of them.

This is a standard NZ paddock, the cows eat down a section of grass and then the wire is moved. Also note the fog in the background blanketing the mountain.

Sick cows in NZ get to wear what the Kiwis call a cover – it’s a tarp that keeps out the elements.

Along with uterine torsions, we’ve been doing physical examinations and treating lots of “down-cows” after calving. NZ pasture grazing cows, when compared to US cows, face many more metabolic & mineral imbalances when they reach peak milk production.

This is an optho case that Jess saw with Jan… "cancer eye" in a cow. It starts as a squamous cell carcinoma in the third eyelid and progresses from there. The cow still has its eye, but it's underneath the gunk you see. Margaret also saw a case the same day while riding with Dr. Jess. New Zealand cows are predisposed to this condition due to their increased exposure to UV radiation.

This won case of the day – Alexandra farms called in for a cow with a swollen bum. It turned out to be an allergic reaction (potentially to an insect bite) on her hoo-hah – OUCH!!!

Here’s a mob (group of cows) heading back to the paddocks after milking.

Here’s Jess examining a cow post-calving (she’s bare-arming it). We have been deluged a number of calls for uterine torsions. Jess & I have become adept at diagnosing torsions (as well as, determining the direction), rolling cows and using our strong backs to help deliver the calves.

Photogenic Pearl (Dr. Jess’ Catahoula dog) modeling a Carhartt vest. She’s a very playful dog and loves to have her head covered by clothing.

This is the view from our backyard – this week there have been some very chilly mornings. At the point this pic was taken, the sun had peaked through and melted the layer of frost.

After following a long tanker track (driveway) up a winding hill – there were magnificent views of the Kaimai range from the farm where we preformed a milk quality grade bust.

Here we are lounging in one of the Te Aroha mineral pools. The water was very hot and the water was slippery b/c it’s alkaline.

“Fat camp” continues (even at the mineral pools).

New Posts Coming Soon

For the faithful blog followers (who are probably in bed right now), new posts coming tonight.

Our Abode

This is Dr. Shelgren's house, it's super cute. In the driveway is her car that Jess & I are driving around in.

This is the room Jess & I share, that's Tui one of the 3 cats. We've done a good job as roomies thus far, but Jess still perfers sharing a bed with her husband Scott =-)

Keeping Up

When going on emergency calls with Jan, Jess & I follow him to the farms in the car. As you can see, we're doing a great job staying left, but Jan continues to leave us in the dust.

Calves in the Spring

On the way back from an emergency call, we pulled over to snap a few shots of these calves playing in the pasture.

Weekend Happenings

This morning Dorine asked us if we’d like to go for a scenic hike overlooking the Waiorongomai Valley, and we obliged. The forecast called for rain today but it held off for our hike. The Waiorongomai Valley was mined for gold in the late 1800’s and once was home to some 1500 people, now only one chimney in a pasture remains. The Waiorongomai Mountains provided water for hydraulic power and This weekend we’ve been going on emergency calls with Jan, the senior vet with the Animal Health Centre in Te Aroha. Jan & his wife, Dorine, came to New Zealand after finishing his veterinary studies in Utrecht, Holland, and they’ve lived in Te Aroha for some 20+ years. Yesterday morning there were 4 calls including 2 assisted deliveries and 2 sick cows. The afternoon was filled with boards studying, senior seminar research and general catching up. Last evening we enjoyed some lovely NZ wine (a trend might start to develop here) and sausages on the barbie. We’ve been told that the Kiwi’s love their sausages and we have to confess that they were quite tasty. We also got to watch ruby on the tele, a test match between the NZ All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. The All Blacks rallied at the end to beat the Wallabies and we cheered them on (actually Jess had to retire to her bed early, some things never change).
timber. Through the goldfields, the Piako County Tramway (railroad) was built. The tramway exists today and is in the process of being restored. We hiked along the Low Level Track which was constructed for horses to walk carrying supplies up and down the mountains. There were small streams that wound around the track and native NZ bush which was very beautiful.

After our hike, Jess & I had coffee at Jan & Dorine’s amazing house – she is an interior decorator. On our walk back to the house Jan rang, and we were off to assist with a uterine torsion that resulted in a C-section with a live heifer calf. We got back into town in time to pick up some takeaways (the same as take-out) and another call came in – a 2nd uterine torsion.

Now we’ve grocery shopped and settled in as the rain is coming down and the fog is covering the peaks of Mount Te Aroha – which we see from kitchen window. Tonight we are going to the Te Aroha mineral pools to experience our own private thermal soda spring spa and what’s boasted as the world’s only hot soda geyser that spouts 4 meters into the air every 40 minutes.

Interesting facts:
* New Zealand is 16 hours ahead of East Coast time
* New Zealand is 20 hours ahead of Alaska time
* So you math whizzes have already figured out that East Coast time is 4 hours ahead of Alaska time
* If you call Jess’ cell phone it will wake us up at 3am, and we _still_ will not answer
* Te Aroha means “Love Mountain” in Maori
* Waiorongomai means “sounds of water always heard” in Maori (which is true!)
* Margaret only snores when she is tipsy or congested
* Margaret and Jess were invited to an Argentinean party with two farm hands, but they declined because there would only be four people at the party, and “Jess is married and Margaret is a dud.”

Trail views

Views of pastures from the trail.

The lush NZ bush - craggy rocks and trickling streams.

The views above.

Jess & Dorine trekking along.

Hard at Work

We're doing the QMPS (Quality Milk Production Services)

proud. We helped Dr. Jess analyze a milking system

in a tradition NZ milking shed. We even used the Tri-Scan!

Jess saw a case of Facial Eczema - a disease that is common in pasture based systems in NZ. The disease is caused by ingestion of spores (fungal spores), it causes liver damage/bile duct obstruction, leading to secondary dermal photosensitization (only on the white haired areas of the cow). It's a new & interesting disease for us, and possibly a Senior Seminar topic.

This pic shows cows lined up in the parlor and marked after their first induction shot. A second shot will be given in 2-weeks and causes parturition to happen 48-hours following the 2nd shot. It's amazing to think that this cow will go on to develop a healthy full udder in 2 weeks time. Time will tell. We saw this heifer yesterday, she severed her extensor tendon on her back leg a few weeks ago. She has been in a splint since then and is making remarkable progess.