Whew, finally I have the time to do this! Yes, I went to Zoo Taiping last whole week for my university course under Non-Domesticated Animal Practical.
So it was zoo then!
I finally kicked into the "father" in me, assuming the role as the 3.5 hours driver duty from Subang Jaya all the way to Taiping, with a stop in Ipoh back and forth of course.
It wasn't THAT bad, if you have a good night sleep the night before. It was a huge burden, as I was holding at least 4 lives of other people's children in my hands, literally.
One steer and down to the crevice we go.
Lucky that didn't happen. So we started our practical 1 day after we reached Taiping, cause it was like 7pm when we reached.
Day1:
We were late! Thanks to me, I couldn't get my way from the rest house to the zoo. We used Boey's GPS to trail us there, as as the name suggested "Guna-Pon-Sesat" we were at least 20 minutes late to report to the veterinary officer.
So it was Dr Choy, and he explained what our daily morning routine was.
After gearing up with our coveralls, we went into action
We have to clean up the cages of all the animals residing in the hospital, which we had:
1-Rabbit A, which had mastitis
2-Rabbit B, which had skin infection on its mussel.
3-Slowloris, which had leg injury
4-Mousedeer,which had skin infection on its right hind leg
5- Bamboo deer, which I had no idea what's going with it because I didn't deal with it at all.
Since it was our first day there, we had a lil trouble with timing and speed in cleaning up, plus we are so novel to the animals so we took quite a while.
Later on, Dr Choy went on rotation around to check on the wildcaptive animals which were reported with infection or anomalies with his tools.
The first case:
We went to the tapir because she had something on her eyes. Dr Choy had to give her some eye ointment to cleans it. Oh dang she was so cute!!
The second case:
We proceeded to the camels because these lovey doveys had some skin infection too. There were black pigments and spots on both male and female. We used the anti-fly spray for veterinary use to prevent the flies from going near those wounds, or its going to be maggots' day.
We had to spray both sides of the body, so I volunteered to climb between the cages for the other side's medication. Quite an experience haha, it is really fun and outgoing to work as a vet in a zoo.
Another thing I learned was male camels salivate more than female ones; like human according to Dr Choy. WTHECK.
The third case:
We went back to the hospital when a pregnant cat got admitted. She was the cat of one of the zoo keepers but she couldn't deliver the babies even after gestation period. The fetuses were in the womb for 3 days, and have most likely died. According to Dr Choy, upon amniotic sack bursting, the babies need to be removed from the womb or the they will die of malnutrition and suffocation. We performed a c-section after we intubated and anesthetized her. It wasn't a clear surgery, but we did performed a lot.
Someone checked the air way.
Someone checked the isoflurene gas.
Someone checked the saline.
Someone checked the BP and HR.
I don't think I should bore you with the scientific terms though, there were 3 clamp methods, long star retractor, radiowave pierce and coagulator.
Note to self, when animals feel pain, their BP and HR increase.
Overall, the surgery was a success, the babies were all dead, all 4 of them, but the mother survived, though she only woke up like hours later from recovery. Very weak and not moving today.
The fourth case:
We went DARTING!!!
Because the Hog Deers(Rusa Ubi) and Seros(Kambing Gurun) had records and history of parasites and tractworm respectively we had to vaccinate them. Of course wild animals wouldn't allow you to go near them with a needle to jab, they RUN. So, we darted them, or at least Dr Choy darted them. I helped out with filling the darts with he vaccines. Felt so medical-affliated.
Note to self, tractworm is transmittable via milk.
We had a session of dart mechanism with Dr Choy, the design, and how to homemake one.
Overall, that was the first day!
PS: Thank you Dr Choy for the duck rice lunch! It was really good! It will be our turn to treat you next time!
I know there's no pictures, but blogger and streamyx is being bitches and I couldn't upload them in good shapes. At least I got words.
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