Really cool, but graphic, so don't read if you are squeamish

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

Cool story. Now, who gets lamb for dinner? ;)

That's what we asked :)

yum, lamb chops. :hungry: sounds like a pretty fun day of school though! :)

:chainsaw: hey guess ya got to be a butcher for the day. amni i can jst feel the lamb chops in my mouth right now :chew: lol. man i feel a lil sorry for the pet though :sniff:

:lol:

:( poor testes

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Smulkin

:( poor testes

---

Spoken like a true man :lol:

oh man... what if it gets dirt up in there???

you put on a latex glove, smear a bunch of baby oil on it and go up in there and get it out. easy as pie. :P

No worries about dirt, he's in a clean stall with hay, and besides, there's not much for anything to stick to anyway ;) No reason to feel sorry for him. It was the best thing to do since the leg was dead anyway. You definately wouldn't want to just leave it like that. Gangrene can set in and the animal can die. And about the baby oil, bad idea. Spray bottle of betadine works wonders.

We checked on him yesterday and today. He had a fever yesterday of 105.5, which is a little elevated considering their norm is 102.5, but he's feeling alot better today. Gave him some Baytril since the penicillin wasn't cutting it and some painkillers. He's flying pretty high right now, LoL. Also, he needed to be neutered since he's going to a place where there are alot of mentally/physically handicapped children. But anyway, he should be ready to go sometime soon since he's doing so good.

Hey man I felt bad for our poor little Maltese too - nothing I can do about gender-specific genital empathy!

hey did you guys see the dog on Ripleys last night? he had two legs amuputated on the same side, so he had two right legs left. That little bugger was cruzing all over motorcycle style lol. pretty fast too!

i'm kind of grossed out, but amused. i like lamb chops. yum yum. ;)

mmm lamb chops......now im hungry :(