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! :)