Posted by Kelly Skaja on July 02, 204 at 19:44:53:
Practice:Fireball Walton DVM (Dairy Cattle Specialist)
Date worked: June 25th
Hours Worked: 5
Overview: On Friday morning I met Dr. Walton and his technician in Corona at his house. We left for our first appointment which was at 7:15am at a local dairy farm. We had to put on rubber boots and overalls that Dr. Walton let me borrow before we got started. The owners of the dairies and all of the workers were very friendly and helpful. We worked with about 500 cows at the first farm and I found out why the boots and attire were necessary. We were up to our ankles in manure the whole time. It was nice though to be working outside for a change. The second farm had about 200 cows and at both places our primary job was to identify which cows were pregant and which ones were in heat, or ones that had cysts. We walked up and down numerous rows of cows, and followed along marking the cows after Dr. had checked the ones that needed it.
What I learned: After the Dr. would check the cows that had a pink stripe on their heads (signal that they need to be checked), we would mark them accordingly with paint sticks. The Dr. Walton would stick his arm into their butts to feel around their uterus for a calf. If she was not pregnant, he would say "open" and I would mark the cow on her back near the base of her tail with an orange paint stick. If she was pregnant he would say "she's got it" and I would make a green stripe on the same place. If she needed to be brought back into heat I would give her a "Loot" shot, which is a luetenizing hormone. I would signal this by marking her with an orange stripe and also writing an orange letter "L" on her right side near her butt. Whenever I gave a shot I had to give it IM (intra-muscularly), near the base of her tail, and I had to stick her quick and with a lot of force to get through the thick hide. It was definately not like giving a dog or cat a shot. There was also a slight fear of being kicked through this process but I learned to stand close to her tail and stand sideways so that the legs hopefully miss me. I learned that it takes a lot of work when you are out on the farm; tracking through the manure, jumping over the gates and fences, avoiding kicks, sweating in the sun, and keeping up with Dr. Walton all proved to be tiring, but it was really fun to be able to experince it. And when we were all done, we had a really good lunch.