Chapter 26: A Future Vet
As I drove into the hospital garage, I saw Sammy Grant in the parking lot struggling to unload a huge wood box from the bed of his father’s pickup. Sammy was a tall, skinny sixteen-year-old with the straggly beginnings of a dark mustache and beard that shared his face with acne sores. I knew him from a variety of calls I had made to his family’s marginal farm. His father worked as a mechanic at the local John Deere dealership in town, and Sammy was responsible for the care of all the livestock on the farm. He was usually the one who called when they had a problem. Whenever I arrived at their place, he attached himself to me. What and why questions came fast and furious.
“Here, let me help you with that, Sammy,” I offered. “What’s in it?”
“Rabbits,” he grunted. “Easier if you could just do ’em here without me having to get them inside, but Dick said I have to bring ’em in.”
“He’s probably right. There’s a good chance they could escape out here,” I said. “What seems to be the problem with them?”
“Nothin’. I just bought ’em off a guy, and he didn’t know which were males and which were females. Got to get that sorted out before I can start raising them. I looked but couldn’t really tell for sure. They’re all young.”
“So,” I asked, “this your new FFA project?”
“Yeah, thought I’d try it. They’re Flemish giants. The kits are supposed to bring a good price, and I got ’em cheap ’cause the guy needed cash. If I can get some ribbons on them at the county fair this fall, the kits should sell well.”
I had never seen a Flemish giant rabbit.
“You grab one end of the box; I’ll take the other,” I instructed. “We can bring them in through the garage. We’ll take them into the treatment room, and I’ll show you what to look for.”
We balanced the box on the treatment table, overlapping on all four sides. I lifted the lid a couple of inches and peeked inside. There were seven huge rabbits crowded into one corner.
“My word, Sammy, they are gigantic! Those are the biggest rabbits I’ve ever seen. Tell me about them; educate me.”
He smiled, obviously proud and happy to be, for a change, the dispenser of knowledge. “Some think they were first bred in Eastern Europe in the 1890s. Others think they were derived from leporine rabbits and imported into England in the mid-1800s. Either way, they arrived in the States from both Belgium and England around the beginning of the twentieth century. The bucks are supposed to have bigger heads than the does, but these all look about the same to me.”
He reached into the box and took out a steel-gray rabbit. He held it with his right arm cradling the animal against his chest. His right hand supported the rabbit’s thorax with his second finger between the front legs, the first and third finger outside the legs holding them tight. The rabbit was at least twenty, maybe twenty-four inches long.
“These are all supposed to be less than six months old,” Sammy said. “They call these juniors. I’ll show them this fall as seniors, over nine months old. The book I got from the library says I need to breed the does before they are a year old. They’re supposed to come into heat for the first time at about nine months. The pelvis of the does is supposed to fuse at about a year, so it’s best to breed them during their first heat. The book says if they’re bred early it prevents the pelvis from fusing and they will have fewer problems giving birth from then on.
“Look at this fur, Doc.” He stroked the animal with his free hand, pushing the fur up from the rump to the head. The glossy, dense fur rolled back to its original position. I copied the motion and found the fur was indeed luxurious, soft and silky.
“The adults get even bigger than this,” Sammy continued. “An adult buck has to weigh at least thirteen pounds to be shown, and an adult doe fourteen. Some of them can get up to thirty pounds.”
“Unbelievable,” I murmured. “I guess that’s why they’re called giants. Well, here, sit on this chair, and turn that beast over on his or her back. That’s supposed to kind of mesmerize regular rabbits; we’ll see if it will work on these guys.”
He rolled the rabbit over onto its back, hind legs facing me. The rabbit was quiet and appeared comfortable.
“That’s good,” I said. “Now just hold the head, and we should be OK.”
I used both hands to part the fur and apply gentle pressure on either side of the vent.
“OK,” I said, “you see this opening just below the tail?”
Sammy leaned over and nodded.
“That’s the anus. Here, below, that is another opening.”
“Yeah, I see it,” he said.
“That’s the vent. If it’s a male when I press, very gently on both sides of the vent, here, we should see the penis exposed. It’s a tube with a small round opening. In the females, some tissue may also protrude, but it will be more oval and have a slit rather than a round opening. What do you see?”
“Looks like a tube with a round opening, a penis.”
“That’s what I think too.”
“OK, Doc. Yeah, I can do this.”
“Good, of course you can,” I said. “Let’s put him in one of the dog cages in the ward, and we’ll do the rest of them, seven did you say?”
“Yeah, seven.”
“You can do them sitting down. Once you get them settled on their back, you should be able to hold their head with one hand and use the other to find and examine the vent. You tell me what you think, and I’ll verify. By the time we finish with these seven you’ll be an expert.”
Sammy put the buck into one of the dog cages and then removed a dark-black rabbit from the box. He took his seat on the chair and after a little fumbling was able to hold the head with his left hand and expose the vent with his right.
“This one’s a doe, I think,” he said.
“I concur.”
He ended up with five females, two blacks, a fawn, a white, and the fifth a sandy tan color. The last rabbit we examined was another male, white in color. After Sammy returned all his rabbits to the box, I helped him carry it back to his dad’s pickup.
“You all set on how to take care of them and what to feed them?” I asked.
“Yep, the book I got from the library has all that. Feed ’em grass hay, rabbit pellets, and fresh green vegetables when we have ’em. I can also feed ’em carrots and some fruits, but supposed to stay away from cabbage and cauliflower and such; gives ’em gas. I’ve got to make sure they have plenty of fresh, clean water and room enough to exercise. My plan is to build ’em a little yard they can run around in and a house for ’em to get into. I’ll also make some whelping boxes for ’em. I’m gonna turn this box into a breeding cage; should work.”
“Sounds as if you have everything under control, Sammy. When you make the pen for them, make certain you bury enough of the fencing all around to keep out the coyotes and other critters. It will have to have a top, too, to keep the hawks out. Chicken wire should do for the top. The main thing is to make sure you keep everything clean. You should disinfect anything you have them in at least every week or two but clean everything real good first with soap and water.”
“What should I use to disinfect with?” he asked.
“A couple of tablespoons of Clorox in a gallon of water should do it.”
***
Two Friday evenings after helping Sammy with his rabbits, I got a call to the Grant farm concerning one of their three milk cows. I drove into the yard between the house and barn. The house was badly in need of scraping and a new paint job. The barn was in similar condition.
I got out of the truck, and Sammy came out of the barn at the same time his father walked down the stairs from the back, screened-in porch. The bang of the screen door slamming shut echoed in the small area between the barn and the house.
Mr. Grant showed me his hands, covered in black grease from his regular job. “I haven’t had a chance to clean up from work yet, Doc. Don’t think you want to get all dirty shaking hands before you see
Bessie. Sammy milked her this morning before going to school and said he saw a couple of clots of blood in the pail. After he went to milk her this evening he called me at work to tell me her bag was hot to the touch and she was hurtin’ bad when he milked her. I told him to call you. I just now got home, haven’t seen her yet.”
“Did she eat anything when you brought her in, Sammy?” I asked.
“Nope, she’s acting really mopey too, Doc. Her udder is hot to the touch. What I milked out of her came out looking more like cottage cheese than milk. There were some blood clots, and it hurt her. She kicked at me, and Bessie never kicks. It’s acute mastitis, right, Doc?”
“Well, before I give a diagnosis, let’s go have a look at her. Sounds like acute mastitis, though.”
Bessie’s head was locked in a stanchion in the barn. The feed trough in front of her nose held a full scoop of a nice-looking mixture of corn and oats. She ignored it. Her rectal temperature was elevated two degrees. Her inguinal lymph nodes were normal. All four quarters of her udder were firm and hot to the touch. I milked each teat a little, and what came out did resemble blood-tinged cottage cheese.
“How long has she been fresh?” I asked.
“She calved almost three months ago,” Sammy answered.
“Well, it’s unusual for acute mastitis to develop so long after calving, but it happens. I think you got the diagnosis correct, Sammy. How did you come up with it?”
“I looked it up in that old Merck Manual you gave me,” he answered. “That’s really an interesting book, Doc. It’s got about every disease a farm animal can get, doesn’t it?”
“Well, it has most of them,” I answered, “but if you keep your grades up through high school and pre-vet in college and get into vet school, you’ll learn a lot that isn’t in the Merck Manual. Remember, your high school activities and all that stuff are important, but the main determinant for getting accepted into vet school is excellent grades.”
“I hear it’s harder to get into vet school than into medical school. Is that right, Doc?” Mr. Grant asked.
“Well, I don’t know about that, but there are a lot fewer vet schools than medical schools. I think between the States and Canada there are only about eighteen or twenty. There aren’t any vet schools in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, or Idaho. The closest are Colorado State and Washington State. Iowa State has one, also the University of California at Davis, Michigan State, and Wisconsin. On the other hand, almost every state has at least one medical school, and many of them have more than one. Of course a lot more people apply for medical school than for veterinary school, so I don’t know if the competition is really tougher or not. I can tell you that Sammy will need at least a B-plus average in college. In most colleges, they score four points for an A, one point for a D. The average for my class was about a 3.4 or 3.5. Having experience with animals helps, but the main thing is grades.
“Anyhow, Sammy, I’m going to show you how to put mastitis ointment inside each teat after you milk out as much as you can. I’m also going to give Bessie a shot of antibiotic. I’ll leave a partial bottle of the antibiotic for you to give her an intramuscular injection twice a day until it’s gone, and I’ll leave plenty of mastitis ointment. The mastitis ointment comes pre-packaged in these syringes.”
I removed the protector over the blunt injector probe at the end of the plastic dispenser of antibiotic ointment. “See, this cap comes off. You stick the tip of the probe up into the teat canal and inject the ointment; then massage the quarter like this.
“You go ahead and milk out all four quarters while I go to the truck for the antibiotic and more tubes of mastitis ointment.”
I returned and filled a glass barrel syringe with Combiotic and removed the eighteen-gauge needle from the syringe.
“OK, Sammy, remember how we do this? Hold the needle between your thumb and finger like this. Hit her on the rump, here, twice with the heel of your hand, and then on the third strike, pop in the needle.” I removed the needle from Bessie and handed it by the hub to Sammy.
“You do it, but then leave it in.”
He did exactly as I had demonstrated.
“Good, now attach the syringe to the needle hub.” I handed him the syringe full of antibiotic. “Now first withdraw on the syringe to make sure you’re not in a vein. No blood? Good. Now inject the antibiotic into the muscle and remove the whole thing. That’s good.”
Next, I watched him finish milking her out and then treat each quarter of her udder with the mastitis ointment.
“OK, perfect. You’ll need to milk her out and treat her at least three times a day, but don’t use the milk for anything.”
“Can I feed the milk to the pigs?” asked my protégé.
“Not a good idea,” I said. “Any bacteria in the milk will build up resistance to the antibiotics, and the pigs could develop some new resistant strains that could cause problems in the future. It would be the same as feeding the pigs pus. Just throw it on the manure pile.
“You should milk her out and treat each quarter before school in the morning, as soon as you get home, and before you go to bed. Give her two shots of the antibiotic each day, morning and evening. You’ll have to take apart the syringe and clean it each time after you use it, then boil it in water for at least ten minutes before you put it back together. I’ll leave you a couple of extra needles in case you drop one or it gets a hook. You can take a hook off using a sharpening stone. Think you can do all of that?”
“Yeah, Doc, sure and thanks for showing me how to do all this stuff.”
“No problem. I’m certain you can handle it. How are your rabbits doing?
“Oh, they’re doing great. Want to see the pen I built for ’em?
“Yes, I would.”
Sammy took me around to the back of the barn, his father trailing us. Mr. Grant was wearing a proud grin on his face. The rabbit enclosure was on ground covered in prairie grass. It was large, probably ten to twelve feet wide and thirty or more feet long. He had built a nice-looking hutch at one end, roofed with new-looking asphalt shingles.
“This is a fine-looking setup, Sammy,” I said. “These rabbits are going to do very well under your care.
Mr. Grant’s grin expanded. “Did it all himself,” said the proud dad.
***
When the county fair opened, Rosalie and I visited the rabbit barn where we found blue and red ribbons on most of Sammy’s cages. The cages’ inhabitants seemed unaware, even disinterested.
Part VI: Fall 1961
Chapter 27: A Hunting Accident?
“This might be messy,” Dick said, handing me a call slip.
It was 7:00 a.m. I had just walked in, and my coat was still buttoned. I read the slip. “Sam Samuelson, Box 24, Old Cottonwood Road, Shetland pony, gunshot wound.”
“Didn’t antelope season start yesterday?” I asked Dick. “How can someone mistake a Shetland pony for an antelope?” I shook my head. “Is it shot in the belly or something? Why messy?”
“Sam’s a lawyer, a shark actually, super aggressive. He’ll have the sheriff’s office out collecting evidence. More than likely, he already has an idea who shot his daughter’s pony and is building a case for the state attorney. If I were you, I’d be careful about anything you say to him. You’ll find yourself in a courtroom testifying, wasting a day.”
“OK, I’m forewarned; I’ll be careful. This is out in that same neighborhood where Hank Randall and Frank Tompkins live, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Sam’s place is about a half-mile north of the Randalls’, up on the edge of the bluff overlooking all those little five- and ten-acre plots. Actually, I think Sam’s the one that subdivided that property. He still owns a hundred acres or so up on the bluff. Just buffalo grass, and he doesn’t do anything with it. I guess he’s waiting for property values to increase. Then he’ll subdivide more of those little mini-ranches.”
I found an overlarge mailbox with “Box 24 Green Acres Ranch” painted in large
green letters. A long gravel driveway snaked to the top of the bluff. When I reached the top, the driveway forked. The left fork ended in a circle in front of a large, brick, single-story house. I took the right fork and drove to the back of the house, parking next to a board-fence corral with a low three-sided shed in the far corner. Every piece of wood that I could see on the place, including the exterior woodwork on the house, was painted bright green.
A large man, his stomach protruding over his jeans, stood holding a black, brown, and white Shetland pony. A plump little girl, maybe four or five years old, with reddish-brown, curly hair stood next to him petting the pony’s nose. Dried blood made a trail from the left shoulder down the outside of the pony’s leg. The little mare was holding the leg with just the tip of the hoof resting on the ground, not bearing any weight on it.
I got out of the truck and walked over. “Mr. Samuelson, I’m Dr. Gross.”
He extended a meaty right hand with short thick fingers. I took the proffered hand. His palm was soft, but his hand was too big for my long fingers to encircle. His handshake was perfunctory.
“Glad to meet you, Dr. Gross. What do you think of this mess?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Came out with Missy to feed the mare this morning and found the pony like this. Can you believe it? The wife and I woke up early to some guns firing. Some of the idiot hunters around here will shoot at anything moving. They were too close to the house. I’ve got the sheriff and the game warden out looking for whoever did this. They could have shot my little girl.” He put his hand on his daughter’s head, protectively. “I just don’t understand these people. Why do they need to hunt in the first place, especially this close to town? No self-respecting wild animal is going to be this close to civilization. I guess they think they are macho men.”
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