Certain details in this book, including names, places and dates, have been changed.
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First published by HarperElement 2015
FIRST EDITION
© Jo Hardy and Caro Handley 2015
A catalogue record of this book is
available from the British Library
Cover images © Sarah Tanat-Jones (animal illustrations); Johnny Ring (photograph)
Cover layout © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
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Source ISBN: 9780008142483
Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780008154318
Version: 2015-09-24
Contents
Chapter Seven: Fly on the Wall
Chapter Eight: We Saved a Life
Chapter Ten: Between Two Worlds
Chapter Eleven: The Kitten who Thought She Was a Parrot
Chapter Twelve: Mad Cows and Doris the Goat
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two weeks in the Dorset sunshine seemed an inviting prospect. After a week of nights at the equine hospital it felt like an age since I’d seen daylight, so I was looking forward to being out in the fields working with farm animals.
Along with two other vet students, Alice and Danielle, I was staying in an adorable picture-postcard cottage in a pretty picture-postcard village with the distinctly un-picturesque name of Shittington – not that it bothered any of the local people, who were a lovely bunch.
The three of us were there to study farm animal population, which meant doing the rounds with the local farm vets. This was a little like the work we were doing in Wales, checking out the health of local herds, but this time we were allowed to do a lot more of the actual procedures; it was more hands-on and less to do with writing reports and adding up statistics, and my hope was that it would give my farm skills a real boost.
We spent the next two weeks taking blood from calves to assess how much immunity had passed on from the mother, and vaccinating calves and cows against BVD (Bovine Viral Diarrhoea) and IBR (Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis, a virus that affects the airways and fertility). Both are nasty viruses that can spread fast. As we’d already learned in Wales, the priority for farmers these days is to keep the herd healthy, so they’re always on the watch for anything that might cause real problems.
In between vaccinations and taking blood samples I had fun learning how to use a pregnancy scanner and how to trim cows’ hooves. The scanner is a sausage-shaped probe that you hold in your hand and insert into the cow rectally. It relays pictures back to a screen and gives a more detailed diagnosis of pregnancy than simply using your hand.
As for hoof-trimming, it’s a bit like cutting your nails but a lot harder work! A cow’s toes are covered by a thick coating of keratin, the same stuff our nails are made of, and like nails they keep growing. Cows need this trim one or twice a year, and the idea is to create a perfectly shaped hoof so that they can walk comfortably; we used hoof nippers and hoof knives to do this. I enjoyed shaping their hooves to make them nice and even, trimming off loose edges that could trap dirt, all the while checking for ulcers and spraying antibiotics if there were any signs of infections. The cows were, for the most part, very patient while we worked and I liked to think they appreciated the effort. The trimmings aren’t just thrown away afterwards, they are kept and used to make the foam in fire extinguishers, among other things.
On the last day of the first week, while we were doing our thing down on the farm, I bumped into Isobel, the producer of Young Vets, who was scouting for filming locations for when Grace came to do her farm elective in a couple of months’ time. She came to watch us at work, and we spent an hour or so chatting and explaining what we were attempting to do with the hooves of the cows. In return she told us a bit more about Young Vets and how it was all going. She explained that, contrary to what we all thought, it wasn’t reality TV or a fly-on-the-wall programme, it was an observational documentary. Right, I thought, so there’s a difference? Weren’t they pretty much the same thing? I decided I’d better keep my thoughts to myself.
That night I dashed off to Kent for the weekend to go to Abi’s birthday party. She’d just finished her first year as a teacher and she was in the mood to celebrate. We had a great night out and danced till one in the morning, so I arrived back in Dorset a little tired on Sunday evening.
After another week with the cows in the glorious Dorset countryside I headed back home to catch up with my family, before starting a fortnight’s work experience with a sports horse veterinary practice that provided veterinary services for the local racecourse.
This was heady stuff; the idea of working with highly strung racehorses