Wednesday, March 25, 2009

one lump or two?











I love working at Murdoch vet school. It is NEVER boring.

Part of the reason its never boring is that there so much good work to do. Sometimes its about the people, sometimes its about the animals.

Yesterday, as I popped over to see the staff about one of our successful cases, a trailer pulled up outside the vet school with a CAMEL in it.

yep a camel (can you imaginewhat the people on the freeway thought?)

Tanami stands about 6 ft tall, and weighs about 500kg (1200 lbs). He's one of a few camels on a nearby hobby farm.

He's at Murdoch for a the "snip".
Tanami has an undescended testicle, which means that his regular vet was only able to geld him half-way. He still acted a bit too much like a stud, so he needs the other one removed. After calling a few vets none of whom wanted to try their hand at anesthetizing this big fella, they called Murdoch.

So Tanami sits in our production animal barn, heads above the other sheep, goats, and alpacas. Tomorrow is the big surgery day. So far a steady stream of students and staff have visitedhim to wish him good luck on his surgery. I popped down for a cuddle just to make Nathan's aunt Molly jealous.

Tomorrow the media arrives to document this unusual case. I can't wait for the headlines. One hump or two takes on an entirely different meaning when you are talking about a camel gelding.

3 comments:

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Unknown said...

Hmmmmm - bet Nathan's jealous of whoever is doing the surgery...... i did at first assume that shot of (I do think it's his nose) was in fact an illustration of an undescended camel testicle! (I have been unsuccessful in changing my use name on this site) --- Gretchen