When I arrived at Roger Williams Park Zoo today, I met Bonnie Soule CVT who is my supervisor. She gave me a tour of the hospital and told me a bit about each room, where things I might need to find are and any special instructions about the rooms. Bonnie also explained about the footbaths that are in certain areas in the hospital and around the zoo. If there is a footbath in the doorway, it means you should step in it to disinfect the bottom of your shoes. Then I met Dr. Mike McBride, the associate veterinarian.
While we waited for Brenda, the animal education keeper, to bring over out patients for the day, Bonnie made copies of some paperwork for me.
Brenda showed up with the first of our patients. We had to perform physical exams, take radiographs and draw blood from 7 of the herps in the education center. A herp is either a reptile or an amphibian, in the zoo world, they clump them into one group to keep things simpler.
The first animal we did was a white’s tree frog. First, Bonnie put gloves on and placed the frog on the radiograph cassette and took a radiograph. She took all of the radiographs because it was my first day, and they don’t have a set way of setting the kVp or the mAs since most of the animals they take radiographs of are very exotic. When they take a radiograph that comes out well, they write down the numbers to use again and get a baseline of what to use. After that we weighed it and Mike took a look at the frog. We didn’t take blood from it because there was no imperative need to and it would have been rather difficult. Bonnie developed the film and had me help Mike. Everything on the physical exam and the radiograph was normal.
Next were two eastern box turtles. They were both females. The first one we looked at we weighed, then took a radiograph. While Bonnie was developing the radiograph, I watched Mike take a look at her. Then he showed me how to hold smaller turtles for a blood draw. There are two common places to take blood from turtles. The jugular, and a sub-carapace. First we tried a jugular; I held the turtle on its side and we slowly coaxed her head out. Mike took the head, and I held her legs to the side of her shell. While holding her head, Mike was able to feel for the vein and attempt to hit it. He had Bonnie try to hold off the vein, but it didn’t help. We tried the other jugular vein by turning her on her other side, and got about 0.5 cc of blood, but needed a bit more. Mike decided to do a sub-carapace. To do this, you hold the turtle by both sides with its head facing away from you. I also held back the legs again. The vein Mike was looking for runs down the center of the carapace and is generally “marked” by the point where two lines outlining the scoots meet together making a Y(see diagram). Bending the needle to a 45 degree angle, it is a blind stick other then aiming for the joining of the Y piece. Mike was able to hit this vein and obtain the blood we needed.
We did the same for the second turtle, but were able to just use a jugular vein to obtain blood. Both of their radiographs looked fine so we were done with both of them.
The blue-tongued skink was up next, his name is Wally. Again, we weighed him, took radiographs, Mike took a look at him, and then I restrained him for a blood draw. Wally looked great, and the radiographs did not show anything significant. To restrain a skink for a blood draw, the restrainer holds the animal on its back using fingers to hold the head and fore-arms; using the other hand, hold the back two legs and support the back. The person drawing the blood takes the tail and inserts the needle between two scales aiming for the ventral tail vein at a 90 degree angle. The vein is located ventrally to the spine, so it is medial and in the tail. We were able to obtain blood this way after a few tries.
While looking at Wally, Mike and I talked about some differences between lizards and snakes, and some common things to know about blood draws from both species. We talked about how there are two huge differences between the two species that are visually seen other then if there are legs or no legs. First, is that snakes don’t have moveable eyelids or external ears. Next we talked about the amount of blood you can take from reptiles, which is 10% of their blood volume. The blood volume of most reptiles is about 70ml/kg.
King Tut was next. King Tut is an uromastycs or an Egyptian Spiny Tailed Lizard. She also needed radiographs, a physical exam, and blood work. Her radiograph showed an abnormal mass by her cloacae so we decided to do an ultrasound. I supported her from below while Mike performed the ultrasound. He could not find anything significant, so we are going to recheck her radiographs in a month to make sure it was not anything diagnostic, most likely just stool. We attempted to draw blood the same way as Wally, using a ventral tail vein, although we could not obtain enough blood. We rescheduled her to come back next week to re-bleed her.
Bonnie did all of the blood work because she wanted to make sure it did not spill or get lost or anything since their blood is so hard to obtain. But she showed me how they use their chemistry machine and that they send out the CBC’s.
I then cleaned up the surgery room where we were doing our examinations by using Virkon spray on all the surfaces the animals were on and any tools we used. I let this sit for about 10 minutes, and then rinsed the tools and wiped down the surfaces.
After lunch I studied for a bit until everyone else returned from their lunches.
While we waited for Brenda, the animal education keeper, to bring over out patients for the day, Bonnie made copies of some paperwork for me.
Brenda showed up with the first of our patients. We had to perform physical exams, take radiographs and draw blood from 7 of the herps in the education center. A herp is either a reptile or an amphibian, in the zoo world, they clump them into one group to keep things simpler.
The first animal we did was a white’s tree frog. First, Bonnie put gloves on and placed the frog on the radiograph cassette and took a radiograph. She took all of the radiographs because it was my first day, and they don’t have a set way of setting the kVp or the mAs since most of the animals they take radiographs of are very exotic. When they take a radiograph that comes out well, they write down the numbers to use again and get a baseline of what to use. After that we weighed it and Mike took a look at the frog. We didn’t take blood from it because there was no imperative need to and it would have been rather difficult. Bonnie developed the film and had me help Mike. Everything on the physical exam and the radiograph was normal.
Next were two eastern box turtles. They were both females. The first one we looked at we weighed, then took a radiograph. While Bonnie was developing the radiograph, I watched Mike take a look at her. Then he showed me how to hold smaller turtles for a blood draw. There are two common places to take blood from turtles. The jugular, and a sub-carapace. First we tried a jugular; I held the turtle on its side and we slowly coaxed her head out. Mike took the head, and I held her legs to the side of her shell. While holding her head, Mike was able to feel for the vein and attempt to hit it. He had Bonnie try to hold off the vein, but it didn’t help. We tried the other jugular vein by turning her on her other side, and got about 0.5 cc of blood, but needed a bit more. Mike decided to do a sub-carapace. To do this, you hold the turtle by both sides with its head facing away from you. I also held back the legs again. The vein Mike was looking for runs down the center of the carapace and is generally “marked” by the point where two lines outlining the scoots meet together making a Y(see diagram). Bending the needle to a 45 degree angle, it is a blind stick other then aiming for the joining of the Y piece. Mike was able to hit this vein and obtain the blood we needed.
We did the same for the second turtle, but were able to just use a jugular vein to obtain blood. Both of their radiographs looked fine so we were done with both of them.
The blue-tongued skink was up next, his name is Wally. Again, we weighed him, took radiographs, Mike took a look at him, and then I restrained him for a blood draw. Wally looked great, and the radiographs did not show anything significant. To restrain a skink for a blood draw, the restrainer holds the animal on its back using fingers to hold the head and fore-arms; using the other hand, hold the back two legs and support the back. The person drawing the blood takes the tail and inserts the needle between two scales aiming for the ventral tail vein at a 90 degree angle. The vein is located ventrally to the spine, so it is medial and in the tail. We were able to obtain blood this way after a few tries.
While looking at Wally, Mike and I talked about some differences between lizards and snakes, and some common things to know about blood draws from both species. We talked about how there are two huge differences between the two species that are visually seen other then if there are legs or no legs. First, is that snakes don’t have moveable eyelids or external ears. Next we talked about the amount of blood you can take from reptiles, which is 10% of their blood volume. The blood volume of most reptiles is about 70ml/kg.
King Tut was next. King Tut is an uromastycs or an Egyptian Spiny Tailed Lizard. She also needed radiographs, a physical exam, and blood work. Her radiograph showed an abnormal mass by her cloacae so we decided to do an ultrasound. I supported her from below while Mike performed the ultrasound. He could not find anything significant, so we are going to recheck her radiographs in a month to make sure it was not anything diagnostic, most likely just stool. We attempted to draw blood the same way as Wally, using a ventral tail vein, although we could not obtain enough blood. We rescheduled her to come back next week to re-bleed her.
Bonnie did all of the blood work because she wanted to make sure it did not spill or get lost or anything since their blood is so hard to obtain. But she showed me how they use their chemistry machine and that they send out the CBC’s.
I then cleaned up the surgery room where we were doing our examinations by using Virkon spray on all the surfaces the animals were on and any tools we used. I let this sit for about 10 minutes, and then rinsed the tools and wiped down the surfaces.
After lunch I studied for a bit until everyone else returned from their lunches.
