Another long-awaited (and just plain long) update!

Hey everyone! I'm back at last!

So to pick up where I left off, I completed my chicken EMS at a really cool poultry farm. As much as I don't ever want to work at a poultry farm, or be a chicken vet, it was an interesting experience.

I wasn't allowed to take pictures at the farm, nor will I mention which farm I went to, because poultry farms are not treated well by the media. But I gathered some pictures from the internet that sort of gives you an approximation of what I saw, with minor differences.

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This is about what the insides of the sheds looked like, think 12,600 birds in one room. This even seems less crowded than where I was: you couldn't even see the floor for birds, and it was like wading through a living, fluffy, white, clucking sea.
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About what our broiler chickens looked like while I was there, only slightly less ratty-looking than this sad example.
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Now, when I googled "Broiler Chickens" to get these images, the sites you come up with are horrible. They're all sites basically about: "Say NO to eating meat!" "Be kind to animals!" "Stop the slaughter!"

And if you actually read these sites, the writers are (for the most part) passionate people who want the best for animals, but who haven't really done their research. While I'm sure that there are farms out there (probably more so in the USA, sorry my fellow compatriots but we're a bit behind on the welfare angle), that don't treat their animals right, there are many more farms that do everything right.

But I also want to get on my soap box for a moment, and say that when I was at the chicken farm, YES there were 12,600 chickens in one room, YES they were pretty crammed in there, YES some of them died from disease or injury, YES, they grow very fast. But do I think they were mistreated in any way? NO. The farmer, whom I shall call J, was extremely committed to his "checkens." His chickens were well cared for.

Anyway, *steps down from the soap box* That's my rant. I'm all for animal rights, but I'm tired of activists calling farmers sadistic evil people who contribute to animal deaths and meat eating! Honestly, not one farmer I've met doesn't care for their animals.

Ahem. Ok. So onward. Chickens was very fun, I had to learn how to humanely kill a chicken, which was a bit gross. I practiced first on some dead ones, and then went on to the live ones. We had to walk the sheds every morning to check for undersized, diseased or injured chickens. I didn't really like picking them off cause of size, plus I'm a horrible judge of what size they're actually supposed to be, so I just stuck with the injured and diseased ones. While it may seem cruel to kill them just cause they're sick, we have to remember that 1 day in the life of a chicken who only lives 6 weeks, is a really long time to be sick or injured. So it had to be done for the chicken's sake, and also to prevent the spread of disease. Let me just say that the phrase "running about like a headless chicken" is completely accurate. Although, technically, you're not supposed to rip the head off, but either way if you dislocate the neck correctly, their nerves spaz out and they flap about, and kind of hop around if you drop them.

Anyway, enough about chickens! After chickens I went to Mossburn Animal Centre, which I went to mostly for small mammal experience (i.e. rabbits, guinea pigs, etc.), but I worked with all the animals while I was there. They had some pretty interesting animals! Besides the more common sheep, horses, chickens, pigs, goats, rabbits, ferrets and guinea pigs, there were also tortoises, emus, a llama, iguanas, geese, turkeys, and a raccoon!

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Melvin the llama.
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Bonnie the Raccoon. She was 12 years old!
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The Small Animal Village "Edinburrow," home of the rabbits, guinea pigs and tortoises.
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Complete with Edinburrow Castle!
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And of course, no town called Edinburrow could be complete without a wild hairy "Haggis"!
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I can't remember which iguana this was, but I think it was Ignatius!
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Posing with "Joker" the very tame beef calf. He was so tame kids rode him like a pony!
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I think this goat's name was "Wilfred"
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View from my bedroom window at Mossburn! Beautiful!

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After Mossburn, I had a glorious week off, during which I had a lot of relaxation, and also did some neat things. Like for instance:

The Highland Games!

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The entrance!
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I started the day off with a delicious haggis, neeps and tatties pasty. Yum! This was followed by a whiskey tasting, which was not so yum, but I had to try it!
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Then I checked out the Highland Dancing Competition, which was interesting. It's a very odd style of dancing (they hop and twirl around two swords lying crossed on the ground), but it fits with the bagpiping.
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No event in Scotland is complete without a pipe band!
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Or a half-naked body-builder in a kilt!
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I missed a few of the earlier events, but I got to see the Cabor Toss. The way the pole is here is what they're aiming for... I think... I wasn't really clear on what was going on! Either way, they have to run with this telephone pole thing, and toss it so it flips up onto the thicker end, and stands upright before falling over the opposite way.
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Apparently tug of war is an international sport! This is the world champion team trying their luck against the "Tugging for Transfers" team, which was made of up organ donators and people who'd received donations. They put up a good fight, it was very inspiring, but the world champion team were not to be beaten!
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Hammer Throw! These guys whizzed these 22kg hammers around their heads and threw them as far as they good. The commentator kept telling everyone to make sure they were watching, in case one flew off into the audience, but fortunately there weren't any errors! I think the longest throw was 116ft or so!
Spinning
Can you spot the hammer?
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Can you imagine a more picturesque spot?
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On the way home I stumbled across White Horse Close, which is where the founder of the Dick Vet was born! It's quite a beautiful little hidden area right by Holyrood Palace on the Royal Mile.
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Another thing I did during my week off was go to Blair Drummond Safari Park with my friends Jen and Katherine. It was absolutely pouring buckets of rain, so the animals weren't quite as active as they could have been. Regardless, it was still a lot of fun.

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An awesome sign, that we interpreted to mean "If your children's heads are on fire, please do not let them near the geese."
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Katherine and I are wild!
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The zebras were so cool!
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Zebra butts!
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A very cool rhino
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Sadly the giraffe did not come out in the rain to play. But we caught a tiny glimpse of him!
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Elephants!
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The River Otters were my favourites!
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They came out and posed for us every time we walked by their enclosure, and you could tell they really loved the attention they got!
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So cute!
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Last one, I promise!
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A wallaby!
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I loved this llama, hahaha. Reminds me of the Emperor's New Groove llama.
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The tiger did not want to come out and play :(
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We saw a sea lion show!
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And finally, Alice the camel has TWO humps!
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Phew, ok that was a lot of safari pictures! Hopefully I will get to again again sans rain, potentially with Anik. Yay!

Anyway, so this past week I have been doing my LAST week of farming! This time I am working at a pig farm at Oatridge Agricultural College. It's a perfect farm to work at because it also functions as an educational unit, so they're used to having students working there all the time. The only downside to working there, is it is incredibly out of the way. I have to walk 30 minutes to a bus stop from my flat, take a 40 minute bus out to an obscure little town, and then walk another 40 minutes uphill to the pig farm. It is a very beautiful walk though, and thus far I've been blessed with gorgeous weather in the morning:

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This walk makes getting up at 6am almost worth it.
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Let me tell you. Pig farming is SMELLY. Very, very smelly. The smell sort of hits you as you crest the hill on the walk there, and as you approach it just gets worse and worse. Once you're there for a bit, it's not quite as bad, but then when you leave at the end of the day, you start to smell yourself. I literally had people move seats on the bus to not be sitting next to me. I shower immediately when I get home, and wash my hair twice, and I STILL smell!

Anyway, so on Monday, we served the sows. Which is more or less pig sex. Now, [WARNING: this next bit is not kid-friendly] boars' penises are shaped like corkscrews, and when they're doing their thing it looks like a power screwdriver.

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Anyway, so we had to help some of the boars, because they were new, and didn't really know what they were doing. Fortunately I was just watching and manning the gates, cause the farmer was like getting in there to help them. Yuck! Also pig sex is just.. gross. First off the boars are huge, and you wonder how the sow doesn't collapse underneath him. Plus, his hoofs scratch the sides of the boar, because they're fairly sharp, so it leaves angry-looking red scratches on the sows back. Plus the boars are like foaming at the mouth and chomping away, getting spit everywhere. Those of you that know me know that I CANNOT deal with spit. It is the one bodily fluid that just gives me the heebie-jeebies, and makes me want to run screaming in the opposite direction. I can work with it if I must, but it's one of those things that just freaks me out. So needless to say, I was glad I didn't have to go near them. *Shudder* [Non-kid friendly bit over!]

After that, we moved some pigs around to different pens, and I got to use a powerwasher to wash out the empty pens. Now first of all, no matter how girly I am, a powerwasher is perhaps the coolest thing ever. The only downside was that it was SO powerful that it was blowing all of the pig poop up into the air, to land on my head, shot back into my face, in my ears, down my shirt. It was slightly disgusting.

Other than that we've been cleaning, vaccinating, cutting off piggy tails (to prevent them from eating each other's tails. They have no nerve endings in the lower part of their tails, so when done right it doesn't hurt them), clipping sharp piggy teeth (to prevent the poor sow from being mauled when the little piggies want milk), and chatting about the farm. Most days I get off sometime between 2 and 4, although on Wednesday I got off at 11:30, which was nice. The farrowing (birthing) has been going on today, although I missed 3 of them that happened after I left Wednesday night, so hopefully the last one will farrow while I'm there tomorrow morning. The newborn piggies are so tiny, and pink! They are still smelly, but not nearly as much as the older ones. The only thing that takes away from their cuteness is the amount of noise one of the little buggers can make. It is shrill! It makes your ears want to dislocate themselves from your head and run in the other direction. My ears were ringing for a few minutes afterwards it was so loud!

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Finishers - the last stage of piggies before they go off to become bacon.
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So, long story short, piggies are kind of neat. I am, however, glad to be rid of them tomorrow. Not because I'm not enjoying all this farming, but I am so exhausted from getting up so early and walking something like 7 miles every day. Every day on the bus ride home I practically pass out. Fortunately my stop is practically the last one, so I usually wake up from my stupor before then.

Then I get to enjoy a proper holiday (even though I'll still be doing some revising), and I'm going on August 6 to visit a friend near Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a few days, which should be fun! And then I'm going to be holed up revising again for my resit, then it's off to Japan! So excited! Also, take a look at this restaurant in Tokyo [WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART]. Anik and I decided we must go here. Lol. Only vet/med students, right?

Anyway, so I'm going to get ready for bed, so I can make it through my LAST day of animal husbandry EMS! Yay! I've already filled out the forms, so all I have to do is show up, and get my form signed, and I'm done! :)

A Long-Awaited Update!

Hello! I'm finally back from pretty much a straight month of farming, which began 3 hours after my last exam. It's been a bit hectic, but ended up being pretty fun!

Anyway, so first lets go over the whole exam bit. I found out that I passed all of my exams except one, which honestly I knew was going to happen cause I hadn't had any time to revise on the first go. So I am thrilled! I've been revising like mad for the resit in August, so I feel like even though I'd rather have passed it the first time around, I might actually learn it better this way rather than cramming the night before. And it's the one subject (Animal Husbandry) that I don't mind resitting, because I know it's incredibly relevant to my career. While other things are still important, like anatomy and immunology and whatnot, I think it's more important to know how to properly take care of and feed a horse than to know the exact inner workings of a T cell.

So anyway, I'm almost in the home stretch of my first year! I can't believe in a little over 2 months I'll be in third year! It's absolutely bonkers, but I'm so thrilled. I have to admit, starting out vet school, especially with my hectic, awful and painful beginning, I was a bit doubtful. Mostly doubtful about whether I'd be able to handle everything when I was not quite there mentally because of my mother, but I also felt (as I'm sure most vet students feel at one point or another) like maybe I really couldn't handle all the work, or maybe I wouldn't be able to learn it all. But I think I'm finally getting into the swing of things, and I'm starting to realize that even though I may not be doing the same sort of memorization I did in college, that I seem to be picking up things and retaining information even after hearing it just once. I suppose that must have to do with the fact that this course is directly relevant to my life. This is what I've been working for since I can remember, so I'm already more open to learning about this stuff than, say, history, which is interesting enough, but really doesn't help me in my life at all.

So anyway, after my last exam, Anik and I packed our bags and headed down to Yorkshire for some dairy farming. We went to the same farm we went lambing at over Easter, because the family we were staying with was extremely nice, and we already knew we were comfortable staying with them, so it was very convenient.

For the dairy cows, we got up at around 6:30am every day, to be ready to milk the cows at 7am. At first I was pretty terrified of the cows. They're just so big, and even though I know a dairy cow wouldn't try to hurt me for doing something that's done to them twice a day every day (i.e. putting the milkers on), I just don't like the idea that a 2 tonne animal could step on me or kick me by accident. Anyway, so there were about 60 cows to milk every day, which took about 1 1/2 hours, and then we went to feed the calves excess milk and give them more straw and hay. Afterward we went in for breakfast, and then hung out for a bit before seeing what else was to be done. Most days we helped out with the sheep and lambs, which was cool because we got to see the lambs we saw over Easter again. Then at 6pm we would get ready for another round of milking before tea and bed.

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Wiping off the teats before putting the milkers on
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Anik wiping off her cow
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The calves were housed separately, and we had to feed them every day
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Some days, because there was time in between the milkings, and because we really were only there for the cows, we got to go sightseeing. One day we went into the town of Skipton, where there is a "small" castle.

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Skipton Castle
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Sitting in the courtyard of the castle
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Anik demonstrates the workings of an ancient loo
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Another day we hiked a prehistoric glacial waterfall. There was no water running in it now, except a small stream at the bottom, but it was so cool! It was absolutely huge, and kind of awing to imagine water crashing down it.

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Approaching the massive cliff
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View from the top - it took a lot of steps to get up there.. Phew!
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Me frolicking to the edge. Don't worry, I didn't go too close, it was a loooong way down!

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We stopped at a pub and had a delicious lunch. I had a highland cow steak!
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Anik had a rabbit pie!

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Another night we took off to get dressed up and head out to the local club for a night of dancing. It was quite a fun night!

Anyway, so after those two weeks, I went back to Edinburgh for a night before heading up to Inchture to Teen Ranch Scotland to work with their horses. Because this was a Christian organisation, every day was started off with devotions, which for the first week involved listening to a book on tape of Corrie ten Boom, called "Tramp for God." I came in about halfway through the book, so I didn't really enjoy it all that much, and honestly I hate books on tape to begin with, because to me it doesn't do anything for me, like reading a book might.

After devos, I went with the rest of the horse staff down to the barn, where we rounded up the horses from their various pastures and brought them back into the yard and fed those that needed feeding, and then groomed and tacked (i.e. put the saddles on) all the horses. After that we'd have morning tea (unless there was a camp going on) up at the house for 15 minutes, then back down for more grooming or trail rides before lunch at 1pm. After lunch, we'd go back down to the barn for more trail rides if the camps were in, and then untacked, groomed again, and cleaned everything for the next day before putting the horses back out to pasture.

I think this horse EMS was probably the best one I've been on. Our Yard Manager, Pam, was once a nurse and also worked in research, so she was exceptionally knowledgable about the horses, and I learned so much from her. She even let Alan and I ride the horses on the trail rides whenever there was a spare, and it was quite fun! The only mishap was that that last morning a horse decided to stomp on my toe, so now I have a (most likely) broken toe. But oh well. Such is life!

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The house we stayed in. So gorgeous!
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The horses in the yard
*The inside of the barn
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Tack Room (Pam on the left)
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"Plough Inn" where we had our morning tea usually
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About to go on a trail ride!
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The farrier came one day to shoe some of the horses
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Alan taking a break in the corral
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So then after I got back on July 1st, I got home and took a shower, then set out to meet my friend Paddy! We wandered up to Rose Street, which is just above Princes St., and had a pint and chatted before wandering about Edinburgh. I showed him around the city, and rattled off a few random facts I knew about buildings and so on. I'm sure I was a horrible tour guide, but hopefully not too bad. :)

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Up at the Castle, something was going on that involved soldiers and a marching band.
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Next we stopped in Camera Obscura, and took in the amazing views of the city.
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In the lower levels of Camera Obscura, there were loads of visual exhibits, like these things, which we played with for awhile.
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A sound-activated thing. Paddy was doing a drum roll here.
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A kaleidoscope of sorts, complete with sneaky picture of Paddy and me.
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Our view of the Scots Monument from our spot in the Princes St. Gardens.
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It was SO warm this week in Edinburgh it was unbelievable, and so we wandered into a cinema and saw Transformers one day to enjoy the almost freezing temperature in the cinema. It was pretty good, but I wouldn't say it was better than the first. Other than that we pretty much wandered about, or sat in parks and watched people going by. It was all in all a very good week.

Tomorrow I start my week of poultry EMS, at a broiler chicken farm, which has approximately 40,000 chickens. I can't even imagine that many animals in one place, so it should be interesting. Truthfully I'm not really looking forward to it, because working with chickens really holds no relevance to my future career, but I suppose it's important to know where our food comes from.

After that, I have a week up at Mossburn Animal Centre to work with small mammals for a week, and then I have a week off (Ireland maybe?) and then my last week at Oatridge College's pig farm before my resit and my Japan Trip! I'm in the home stretch now, but it's still a very busy summer!