Something awesome happened today at school. We got to watch and assist our teacher/vet Dr. Epps in surgery. He was amputating a leg off a Barbadoe sheep because it had gotten caught in a fence and the leg was totally dead below the hock. This normally isn't done to sheep and goats for economic reasons, but this is someone's pet.
So we started off by giving anesthetic drugs to knock him out, and then we got him up on the rack, intubated him and started him on gas anesthetic to maintain him throughout the surgery. We tied his leg up to the light above us so we could shave and prep him. We scrubbed and put betadine wraps on his leg so we could transport him to the surgery table.
The vet started by incising through the layers of tissue and muscle, used gigli(sp?) wire to go through the middle of the femur, and incised through the rest of the muscle on the inside of the leg. He closed the incision by sewing the remaining muscle over the rest of the femur. When he was finished sewing, the incision was very straight and clean looking.
We also neutered the sheep while he was under, and that was "different". It's not sewn shut when the testicles are removed, so in case it swells, it has room to expand and drain if need be. Fun stuff. The sheep was up and about about 15-20 minutes after we took him back to the stall. So it was all good.
Hope you like :-D