BACK IN ACTION

Being an equine vet to camel and sometimes into poultry, it is challenging but exciting. Coming to the end of a gruelling breeding season. I should have plenty of time to share the experiences so far. Hopefully i shall start blogging soon and you can expect a lot of photographs on foal diarrhoea,Rhodococcus and  ultrasound scan images of the reproductive tracts of  some difficult to breed mares.

Kumaran

Long break

I shall post a lot of pictures soon on my blog soon...

Last three days had been very hectic, there were five colics, three were serious, luckily there was no mortality or did not require surgery. I am investigating what went wrong and couldnot get any clue. Anyway that is how it goes. I was particularly worried about two mares which were to foal in the first week of january, they are fine now. Many times we are in a dilemma, to use some of the drugs, which are contra indicated in the last trimester of pregnancy, when we have no other options, we have to take risk. Once the foaling season starts, our movements will be restricted, and even if i go out i cant enjoy the atmosphere, even if it is going to be some celebrations like birthday parties. This is how the life of a stud vet goes...

As some one who had been doing private practice, I understand the difficulties of vets practising in janadriya, i met a friend a few days before he was thinking of winding up the business of doing private practice there. Some owners owe nearly 60000 riyals and giving some lame excuses for the non-payment, one even told him that he will not pay now as he was upset with the service, when a very costly yearling was colicking, the vets did not attend to it immediately.This is non-sense, dont the vets have their private life, they were attending to a birthday party that night and asked another nearby vet to attend to that case, and the attending vet had advised the owner to take the animal to a referral clinic as it was a surgical case. But the owner refused to take and the horse died. Now the owner has stopped the payment and the vet in a big trouble. I hate this and that is one of the reason i left, imagine in the middle of night, during winter, with temperatures near zero, attending to dystocias and colics, the next day when you go for your money, they will drag you for a month or so and ask for a discount and finally pay half the amount. Sometimes i felt like a beggar.

It is very cold 1`C here in Riyadh. i just imagine how difficult it is for my friends who are working in places like canada where most part of the year is below zero. Everytime i handle an animal i have to wash my hands, but the temperature here makes it difficult. is there any other way i can clean my hands.

Most of our working time is different from others, many times my friends ask me whether i do some work or not, because when i call them it would be mostly the busiest part of their work which is free time for me. I start work at 5 in the morning and mostly it will be over by 10. between 10 and 3 is spent leisurely. During the breeding season we spend a lot of sleepless nights due to foalings and related complications. So when some friends call me during day, i will be at home and they start thinking that we are paid even while sleeping at home, they dont realise that we work at night also.

As we get older, it shows on the aches in different parts of our body. Especially the sixteen years i spent with horses i sustained many injuries to different parts of the body and it shows up now. Apart from getting injuries, we also get some psychological problems, whenever i go out with my family or without them, i am a bit nervous, that anytime i may get an emergency call from the farm, this makes me restrain my travel for longer distances. When i am away and if my assistant calls me to inform that there is a colic or a dystocia, that is enough to damage my happiness and peace. Luckily my family understands my situation and co-operate well, otherwise it would have been hell.