There are always good things
Jul. 21st, 2020 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormTwo days ago I went to castrate the last 2 piglets. I'd skipped castrating them with the first bunch because they were younger and smaller; one was Little Red, the last born and kind of runty. He was quite a fighter, straggling along after the rest of the group of piglets and squealing all the way, but making it. He was sizing up but slowly. My thought was he couldn't compete for milk as well as the others.
Well.
I didn't do the check that I normally do before cutting into him, palpating everything. He had good big testicles, so I disinfected, cut, pulled one out... and there behind it were his intestines. They didn't unspool out the wound or anything, and it was a relatively small wound, but there was a good chance that if I put him back like that and he ran around a bunch that they would come out the hole I'd just made; his testes and skin had been holding them inside before. I don't know how to suture, nor do I have the right equipment for it. Yet.
So we culled him; Tucker was there with me, thank goodness, and just sat there being calm while I gathered the things. I used the new small-animal captive-bolt stunner (it was pretty great, I really want a big one for the pigs), then cut his throat quick, he was too small to stick properly. Brought him in, skinned him, gutted him, and will do him the honour at least of a memorial feast, I can't bear the thought of putting him into the ground or feeding him to the chickens.
But it was hard. It's one thing if an animal is in immediate suffering, I can kill them then and know I'm saving them some awful moments. It's another thing if the death is planned out, if the animal is happy and unawares and has lived a good span where they get to play with their environment and other animals.
It's a very different thing when I am distracted, don't do my job right, wound an animal, and then need to kill it because of what I've done. I mean, he would need to have been killed young anyhow, in all likelihood: not being able to suture, if I left him intact he'd need to be eaten within a couple weeks. But he wouldn't have had to have that first incision and then be carried to the block, he could have had that couple weeks of play. Or I could have taken him into the vet to do it, but the vets are pretty full and busy lately.
This is the first scrotal hernia I've dealt with since learning to castrate; I may not even have recognised it because it was pretty subtle. But now I know, anyhow. Hell of a way to learn a lesson.
So yesterday I was in the field for work, swarmed with bugs, and that was good. It's just good to be out there. Bathtub goose is growing and needs something done with it. There's a black cat asleep by my leg, all cuddly. Tucker took good care of me the night after it happened, he kept me well snuggled and loved. I have a freezer full of a bunch of kinds of sausage. Things are ok.
They are just sometimes hard.
Well.
I didn't do the check that I normally do before cutting into him, palpating everything. He had good big testicles, so I disinfected, cut, pulled one out... and there behind it were his intestines. They didn't unspool out the wound or anything, and it was a relatively small wound, but there was a good chance that if I put him back like that and he ran around a bunch that they would come out the hole I'd just made; his testes and skin had been holding them inside before. I don't know how to suture, nor do I have the right equipment for it. Yet.
So we culled him; Tucker was there with me, thank goodness, and just sat there being calm while I gathered the things. I used the new small-animal captive-bolt stunner (it was pretty great, I really want a big one for the pigs), then cut his throat quick, he was too small to stick properly. Brought him in, skinned him, gutted him, and will do him the honour at least of a memorial feast, I can't bear the thought of putting him into the ground or feeding him to the chickens.
But it was hard. It's one thing if an animal is in immediate suffering, I can kill them then and know I'm saving them some awful moments. It's another thing if the death is planned out, if the animal is happy and unawares and has lived a good span where they get to play with their environment and other animals.
It's a very different thing when I am distracted, don't do my job right, wound an animal, and then need to kill it because of what I've done. I mean, he would need to have been killed young anyhow, in all likelihood: not being able to suture, if I left him intact he'd need to be eaten within a couple weeks. But he wouldn't have had to have that first incision and then be carried to the block, he could have had that couple weeks of play. Or I could have taken him into the vet to do it, but the vets are pretty full and busy lately.
This is the first scrotal hernia I've dealt with since learning to castrate; I may not even have recognised it because it was pretty subtle. But now I know, anyhow. Hell of a way to learn a lesson.
So yesterday I was in the field for work, swarmed with bugs, and that was good. It's just good to be out there. Bathtub goose is growing and needs something done with it. There's a black cat asleep by my leg, all cuddly. Tucker took good care of me the night after it happened, he kept me well snuggled and loved. I have a freezer full of a bunch of kinds of sausage. Things are ok.
They are just sometimes hard.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 04:11 pm (UTC)the captive-bolt is a fantastic tool. so fast and humane and easy.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-23 04:58 pm (UTC)