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.