Many of the wild pigeons brought in to Folly were suffering from canker, or trichomonas. It’s a horrible disease in which white clots build up in the bird’s throat that prevent it from swallowing or breathing properly. Eighty per cent of pigeons carry the organism, but they don’t all become infected. When the birds become stressed the organism can multiply and a mild infection can turn into a serious condition.
Pigeons with canker have to be given antibiotics and need to be crop-fed, which means their food has to be pushed past the clots and into the bird’s crop, which is the muscular pouch near the gullet or throat. The crop is basically an expanded part of the oesophagus and it’s used to temporarily store food.
Learning to crop-feed was another bird-handling skill I acquired at Folly. The receptionist, Poppy, an elderly lady of great character, was particularly helpful with this one.
‘When the crop feels like a scrotum you’ve got the food in properly,’ she said breezily.
‘A-ha, thanks,’ I said, laughing so hard I almost dropped the tube of mashed Weetabix mixed with recovery formula that I was using to feed a small wood pigeon.
But not all birds needed hand-feeding, many could feed themselves on bird seed, depending on their age and the severity of their injury or disease.
Birds would often come in with injuries after being mauled by cats. One family arrived with a baby collared dove that had puncture wounds all over its back. The poor little thing was traumatised. We cleaned the wounds and treated them with antibiotics, and as we did so I learned a useful tip from the animal care assistants at Folly; they would take an antibiotic capsule meant for swallowing, open it up and sprinkle the powder on the bird’s wounds. It was an unconventional method, but it worked extremely well.
Like the hedgehogs, the pigeons are rehabilitated and released back into the wild whenever possible. The members of the public who bring them in the first place are usually happy to take them back and release them in the place where they were found, which is the best approach for the animals.
The pigeons were hard work, but the biggest challenge I faced at Folly was in fact a large male pheasant. He was big and strong and he did not like being in captivity. He had an injured leg – a healing fracture – and he needed pain relief and rest, but every time I opened his cage to give him his medication and check on his leg, or give his cage a bit of a clean, he made a break for it. In that moment, he always forgot about his painful leg – escape was the only thing on his mind. He was so strong and flapped his wings so hard that it was difficult to get near him; even when I did catch him with my hands, he was so strong and powerful that he regularly managed to break away, so I ended up having to herd him back into his cage, shooing and clapping behind him while the other workers cut off all available exits.
The pheasant was not happy, but after several weeks at Folly his leg had healed and he was ready for release. Folly is situated in a beautiful forest, so it was decided that he could be released into a new habitat, away from roads or any areas in which pheasant hunting is common. I was given the privilege of letting him go, so after battling to get him into a cat carrier, I walked him down the driveway. He was not impressed. I felt him battering the box from the inside, but when I got to the edge of the wood I set the box on the ground and opened the door. Sprinting out, flapping his wings, he took flight for 10 metres or so, before hitting the ground and disappearing at top speed into the darkness of the wood. Watching him fly away was a wonderful feeling.
Folly is an amazing resource; I loved volunteering there and have gone back since to take them a baby sparrow that had fallen out of its nest at the stables where my horses are kept. The little thing had hit its head, which was swollen, but with a bit of Folly’s tender and expert care it recovered and, too young to be released, stayed to be hand-reared at the centre until it was big enough to fend for and feed itself.
One afternoon, after a morning at Folly, I set off to visit my friend Lucy, who was living in a small village in West Sussex. Lucy and I had met at the RVC in our third year and in our final year we’d been in the same rotation group of five students, sharing all our core placements.
We’d been close friends ever since. Lucy is an amazing person; a brilliant and talented vet as well as clever and forthright and a lot of fun. It was Lucy who kept me sane during the toughest moments of our training, and Lucy who commiserated with me when things went wrong.
After we graduated Lucy had headed straight for farm work, winning a highly sought-after internship with a small farm-based veterinary practice that would, hopefully, lead to a permanent job. She was only an hour away from my family’s home, so we’d promised to meet up often, but in the weeks since graduation we’d both been so busy that three months had gone by before we could find a time to get together. I was longing to see her and looking forward to catching up.
Lucy was living in a pretty little terraced house with a cottagey feel to it that she shared with another vet and the black cocker spaniel she had bought soon after we graduated. She’d called him Renly, after her favourite character in Game of Thrones, and he was gorgeous and cuddly but very, very naughty. He had just been castrated and Lucy said she was feeling very sorry for him, but he didn’t appear to be suffering – he was leaping everywhere and making inroads into the kitchen bin every time Lucy turned her back, so that the house rang with constant cries of, ‘Renly, no!’
Over a delicious dinner and a glass of wine, Lucy told me all about her new life. She had settled into the practice and was becoming part of the farm community and I could see how much she was enjoying it. She said she was working hard, going from farm to farm with Renly tucked into a crate in the back of her car, but the work was what she had always enjoyed most, and she was being given lots of support by the vets in the practice.
Lucy was full of stories about her work. One of the funniest was about a pig called Patsy that appeared to be so ill it couldn’t stand up. Lucy arrived at the farm with a vet student in tow and examined the pig, taking its temperature with a thermometer up its backside. It was clearly unwell and she suspected pneumonia, but when she went to inject it with antibiotics and anti-inflammatories the pig, which weighed all of 200 kilos, suddenly leaped to its feet, the needle still stuck in its rump, and shot straight into a bush from which it refused to emerge. Clearly after the indignity of the thermometer, the injection was a step too far. After failing to chase the pig out, Lucy and the vet student stood in the field trying to tempt it out with apples and bran mash, at which point Lucy finally managed to retrieve her syringe and make a hasty exit.
It was lovely to spend an evening with Lucy; she made me laugh, gave me a great meal and reminded me of how precious good friends are. I was so pleased for her that she had settled into country life, but I couldn’t help thinking how different our lives were now, with Lucy in a stable job with a house and a dog, while the next year for me was going to be filled with travelling, both in the UK and abroad.
In the end, though, I decided that both options were exciting, just in different ways.
CHAPTER THREE
Mine is a family of animal-lovers. In particular, dogs. We’ve always had dogs, mostly springer spaniels; affectionate, loyal and energetic companions. Tosca had been part of our family since I was 11. I could barely remember a time when she hadn’t been around. Whenever I had gone home from veterinary college she was waiting to leap up at me, pawing at me when I ignored her and demanding my instant and undivided attention.
A pretty black-and-white springer spaniel, you always knew when Tosca was around. If you tried to sit down with a book she’d nudge your hand with one of her beloved tennis