Saturday, January 24, 2015

Final Reflection

I have learned so many things over the course of this experience, and I definitely feel as though I have completed all of the four goals that I set out to achieve. (I reflected on each one throughout the experience.) In this blog post, though, I want to answer one question: Why was this winterim important or significant?

Many people might be wondering how the issue of parasites in animals is significant to the world or what can be learned from it, and I think one reason it is important is because it is similar to what is happening in the world of human medicine. I determined that veterinary medicine is not the track for me, but I am now thinking of a profession in human health, so this winterim experience was still relevant to the field that I would like to pursue. In the domestic animals (both in North Carolina and at the vet clinic), I saw several cases of parasite resistance to drugs, such as the dog that was rescued from Texas and had Heartworm and the horse from the equine unit that had an EPG of 1,025 despite being regularly dewormed. This type of resistance is happening in human beings (with bacteria), which is causing many drugs that were previously effective to become ineffective. In fact, it has been predicted that within the century, drug resistance among bacteria would essentially cause all of our current drugs and antibiotics to become ineffective. However, there has been a recent discovery of a new antibiotic (the first new antibiotic to be discovered in 30 years!) called Teixobactin, which has proven to be effective against most of the bacteria that have become resistant to drugs. Not only that, but it is almost impossible for the bacteria to mutate and become resistant to this drug! The reason for this is that it works through multiple receptors, meaning that the bacteria would have to have mutations in all of the receptors simultaneously, which is highly unlikely and almost impossible.

No antihelminthic (drug for parasites) like this exists in animal medicine yet, though, and the issue of drug resistance is a scary one, knowing that once a parasite mutates, the drug is then completely ineffective. I learned over this winterim that, just like in human medicine, it is extremely important to use dewormers and other drugs wisely and only when necessary. Because of this, I am very thankful that I now have the skills to test for parasites in my own animals before deworming unnecessarily and overusing drugs.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog as much as I enjoyed sharing my experience with you!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Day 16: Sleepy Puppy

Today was very busy because both vets were here in the morning. It was mostly annual appointments, but there were some things that I hadn't previously seen, one of which was an 18-year-old dog! He didn't look like it at all either.

The first patient that came in was a dog who had a histiocytoma on his foot, which is a tumor that is not cancerous or spreadable. These tumors often go away on their own, but some require surgery.

Joey was a very unique patient that came in; he was previously a stray from Michigan, but he was a beautiful dog and very friendly, too. He looked great, but we found that he has a TON of whipworms along with heartworms. I was able to see both under the microscope. The heartworms were very interesting to look at because they coil and uncoil under the microscope. There was only one other dog that I've seen with Heartworm here, but he had already been diagnosed and was being treated, so I never got to see the worms in his blood. Later in the afternoon, there was a puppy that came in who had just gotten adopted from the dog warden who has tapeworms and roundworms. I have now seen all four of the internal parasites that I researched about last week.

I got to watch the surgery for Harley, the dog that came in yesterday with the ear hematoma. This pocket was completely filled with blood from a bunch of vessels that burst, so Dr. Beth sliced open the entire length of the inside of his ear, and it all came gushing out. She didn't sew the incision closed, though, because that would have cause the pocket to fill right back up, so instead she stitched it like a quilt--all the way through the ear--and left the incision open for anything else to drain. Scar tissue will then build up, and the incision will close on its own.

Right before lunch, there was an ADORABLE puppy that came in, and he curled up and fell asleep on my lap! I was highly considering stealing him, but I don't think my dad or the owners would be too thrilled. Tomorrow is my last day, and it's full of appointments and no surgeries. The staff has been very fun to be around.


Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Day 15: Eyeball Removal

The first surgery of the day was a cat declaw, and it was much simpler than I thought it would be--it only took about ten minutes! It's called a digital removal because Dr. Bart essentially amputates one whole digit (it's like removing your finger from the last knuckle up). It took him about one minute to cut off all the claws on one paw, then he would glue each of the holes back up. He did that for both paws, then vet wrapped each leg, and that was it!

The second surgery was a spay for a six-month-old boxer Lucy. It was a little longer, more complicated, and riskier than the neuters that I saw yesterday. First he made his incision, then stuck his finger down in it to break suspensory ligaments in order to get an ovary out! He did this for both ovaries, cut the ovaries and uterus out together, then stitched everything back up. It took about a half an hour all together. After that was another dog neuter; his owner brought us freshly baked s'more cookies when she came to pick him up!

The two ovaries are at the ends, and the uterus connects them.

Kato getting neutered 

The fourth surgery almost made me throw up several times (you'll see how nasty it was in the pictures!). It was an eyeball removal for a little pug who had a severely damaged eyeball from being attacked by another dog. The surgery began by stitching the eyelids shut, then cutting around the whole eyeball. He had to cut all the extra ocular muscles in order to remove it, which took a little time; it kept bleeding profusely out of a couple places, so he had to clamp and stitch those off. He removed the whole eye with the skin on top of it and stitched the socket back up. Just for experimental purposes, Dr. Bart and I cut open the eyeball. It squirted a clear, aqueous solution all over when he first cut into it--all over Dr. Bart's face and eye! Gross! We found the lens inside.

They eye before the surgery

Cuttig around the eyeball

Taking the eyeball out

All stitched up!

Today was mostly annual appointments, but there were a couple special cases. The first appointment we saw was a brown lab (Harley) who had an ear hematoma, which is a big fluid-filled pocket caused by an ear infection. The only way to get rid of it is with surgery, so he is coming back tomorrow morning to be put under anesthesia and get all of the fluid drained. Berlin was a boxer puppy that had a habit of eating his own feces, so I learned that putting spinach or pineapple in with the dog food makes the feces smell bad. I wouldn't think that dogs would be too inclined to eat pineapple, though. Maybe with dog food they wouldn't care! Bailey was a dog that came in who had a broken nail and kept trying to lick and chew at it, so Dr. Bart ripped it off and said it would just grow back. Sasha was a dog who had a cyst on her eye that is going to be removed in about a month. Buddy was a huge intact pit bull who had a bad skin infection and had skin flaking everywhere. Dr. Bart determined that it was allergy related, but he still doesn't know what is causing the reaction, so he instructed the owner to switch dog foods for two months to see if anything happens. He also did a skin scrape to determine if mites were the cause, but he found nothing under the microscope.

Now for a little goal reflection...the most prominent thing that I've noticed about the life of a vet is how busy it is and how little free time there is. Both of the vets that I've worked with have noted the fact that even though they have a two-hour lunch period, they are often there for most of that time making phone calls and catching up when clients aren't there. In addition, the clinic closes at six, but the vets and technicians often have to stay there for an extra hour cleaning, finishing things up, and getting things ready for the next day. The time during the day is very rushed, too; it is a struggle trying to stay on time while thoroughly attending to each and every client. I'm not even the vet, and I am still exhausted when I get home every night! I've also noticed that much of what a vet does is diagnosing problems--one after another--and it is very eye opening but also a little sad. As an animal lover, I'm not sure I want to be exposed to all of those problems every single day. Taking an animal's life is also not something that I take very lightly (nor do many people), and I don't think that is something that I would want to be doing on a daily basis. To be clear, this is definitely a fun experience, and I am enjoying it a lot, but as far as a future career, I don't think it's an option; it's good that I'm figuring that out now, though.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Day 14: Huskies!

I got to watch three surgeries this morning: two dog neuters and a cat dental. I can't say that before today I've ever seen a dog neuter! It was a lot quicker than I expected; it only took about 20 minutes from the time he cut the dog open to the time that the dog was completely stitched and glued up.

Bunker (a Springer Spaniel) was the first dog Dr. Bart neutered. As he went through the surgery, Dr. Bart explained to me everything he was doing. He made the incision, took one testicle out, ripped off all of the unnecessary connective tissue, clamped the blood flow three times, cut the testicle off, then stitched it up. He repeated the process for the other one, then stitched up the incision (with dissolvable stitches) and put glue on the outside for good measure. He did another dog (Bilbo) right after that.

Bunker

Bilbo

The third surgery was a dental for a cat who also had to get three teeth extracted. The dental was just like for people, just with a little less teeth. One of the technicians cleaned her teeth, polished them, and put fluoride on them, then Dr. Bart pulled the three teeth. One that he needed to pull was a lower canine, and he was telling me that it is really easy to fracture the jaw when pulling a lower canine. Yikes!



The very first appointment to come in was a cat that had to be euthanized because she had a tumor around her nose and eyes. I was not in the room with the patient, but Dr. Bart only sedated the cat in the room then brought her to the back room where I was allowed to watch him euthanize her. Because she was sedated and unaware of what was going on, he injected it right into her heart to make it go faster.

After lunch there was an alaskan husky that came in (they're SO pretty!), but he was bleeding a lot out of one of his ears; he had blood all over his ear and neck and was getting it everywhere. Dr. Bart couldn't tell for sure the cause of it, but he found a lump in his ear canal that should not have been there. Later I saw ANOTHER husky! I'm not sure I've ever even personally seen one before today.

You can even see the blood on the wall.


Two extremely cute puppies came in today from a breeder, and they were almost as small as the chugapoo puppy from yesterday! Both of them had roundworms, but again it's pretty common for young puppies to have parasites. Right after those puppies, there was a four-month-old hairless chihuahua puppy that came in for a regular appointment. It must have weighed two pounds max.



I also saw a dog that had pneumonia, along with a very overweight yellow lab (160 pounds!) who would not put weight on his front right leg. They did X-rays on him, but it looks like it's just a soft tissue injury.

The last patient of the day was an interesting one: it was a bulldog who had recently had a huge cyst removed on his neck, but there was a huge pouch full of fluid and one spot where it was leaking out. He still had the stitches in from his previous surgery, so Dr. Bart took those out, then decided to remove the bulge where it was leaking so that he could drain the whole thing. He took Daisy the bulldog into the back, numbed the spot, cut it out, drained the pouch, and stitched it back up. It was very disgusting!

I helped out today by holding dogs, running and getting supplies, and drawing more vaccines--they're so trusting! Alicia, one of the techs, came out of a room and said, "Grace, I need you to draw the two vaccines in the fridge for the blue room." During surgery, Dr. Bart asked me to control the oxygen machine. I'm happy that I'm actually able to help and not just following people around doing nothing all day.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Day 13: Chugapoo

Today was a VERY busy one at the vet clinic! In fact, I didn't think I would get to see such a wide range of things in one day. I was surprised how few "regular" appointments there were--almost all the patients today had some problem that they needed to be diagnosed. The very first patient (Max) actually had Heartworm! It's not common around here in the winter because it is transmitted by mosquitos, but he was a rescue dog from Texas. I got to see first-hand an example of the heartworm resistance that I talked about in the south. He got a shot a month ago to kill off the weak worms, and now he is back for two shots two days in a row to kill off the rest. Max also had Whipworms, but that can be pretty common in dogs.

The fourth dog that came in (Ozzie) had diabetes, and I got to see a test to determine his blood sugar. I also got to see a dog with an ear infection, a pit bull who was having weekly seizures, a cat who had asthma, and a different cat who was having respiratory problems.

One of the highlights of my day was when Dr. Beth and I went to examine this month-old puppy (Dixie) who was a pug, chihuahua, and miniature poodle mix--apparently they're called chugapoos. This little puppy was SO small and cute! She was so little that I could cup her in my hands. She was healthy except that she had Coccidia, which is very common in puppies; I was able to look at the eggs through the microscope.    

Missy was a terrier that had a hole in her eye because of a fight she had with another dog, so I got to see Dr. Beth put neon drops in her eye and examine it under a black light. She also had a heart murmur, which I got to hear; it sounded a lot like a washing machine! There was no clear beat to it.

It was such a busy morning that I didn't get off for lunch until 1:20 when I was supposed to get off at 12:00! Good thing they have a "two-hour" lunch period...after lunch I got to see Callie, a French pit bull, be treated with chemotherapy for Lymphoma. I never thought I would be seeing dogs with cancer, or even Heartworm for that matter! After that, Dr. Beth taught me how to draw up a vaccine into a syringe, so I drew up a rabies vaccine for a dog named Elroy. I hope I did it right! Later I drew an oral vaccine that involved liquid and powder, so I drew up the liquid, syringed it into the powder, mixed the two, then drew up the mixture.

The afternoon slowly got more and more depressing. First we had a dog that was diagnosed with lung cancer. We did an X-ray on her, and it showed signs of cancer, although there is a small chance it could be a really bad infection, but it is highly likely that it is lung cancer. They originally brought her in because she was having weird breathing patterns then had what appeared to be a seizure. I did not come back in the room when Dr. Beth was telling them the X-ray results; the parents were pretty emotional. After that, someone brought a cat in who had to be euthanized, so I was also not allowed to be in the room for that. I've noticed that vets have to be very emotionally strong; I'm not sure I could handle putting animals down.

My work day ended at 6:00. Tomorrow I will be working with Dr. Bart, and he has surgeries scheduled for the morning, so that should be fun to watch! In fact, one of the cats that came in today is coming back tomorrow for a dental and is getting a canine pulled.


Dixie the Chugapoo 

X-ray of the dog with lung cancer 

All of the medications! 

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Days 11 and 12: Home Sweet Home

I finally made it home! Our goal was to make it home yesterday late at night, but we decided we couldn't make it and got another hotel. I started my college search by looking at Wake Forest and Davidson, which will serve as good comparisons for other schools now.

I couldn't get a lot of research done yesterday, so I did some today when I got home. Although this is slightly tedious work, I'm excited to apply it next week in the clinic. Today I got through Heartworms, Fleas, and Ticks.

Heartworm is transmitted from animal to animal through mosquitoes; microfilariae (baby heartworms) in the bloodstream are not capable of causing hearworm without first passing through a mosquito. These worms can reach more than 12 inches in length when mature! General symptoms include labored breathing, coughing, vomiting, weight loss, and fatigue after moderate exercise. Unlike other worms, diagnosis involves radio graphs, ultrasounds, or blood tests rather than a fecal exam. There have been recent studies showing that in southern states, heartworm resistance is growing because mosquitoes are active all year long; vets are seeing more pets on prevention dewormers testing positive for Heartworm.

The flea life cycle involves four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The eggs are laid in the animal's fur in bunches of about 20, and an adult female can lay about 40 eggs every day. The eggs represent 50% of the entire flea population present in an average home. The larvae develop over several weeks and can get up to a quarter inch long; they make up about 35% of the flea population in an average home. A cocoon protects the pupae for several days or weeks before an adult flea emerges. It has a sticky outer coating, which allows it to hide deep in a carpet and cannot be removed by a vacuum; it makes up about 10% of the flea population in a home. The adult fleas need to feed from a host within a couple hours of emerging from their cocoon and can live from a couple weeks to several months on a host; they make up less than 5% of the entire flea population in a home!

There are 850 species of ticks, which are put into two general groups classed by body structure: soft and hard ticks; the most common with pets are hard bodied ticks. Like fleas, there are four stages to their life cycle: egg, larva (or seed tick), nymph, and adult. A unique thing about ticks is that most of them need three different hosts to complete their development. The six-legged larvae attach to a host and fill with blood over several days, fall to the ground, molt (shed their outer skins), and become eight-legged nymphs. They then wait for a second (slightly larger host) and repeat the same process to become an adult tick. After that, they look for a third host (which is usually either a deer or dog), feed off of them, then breed to produce more eggs. Their entire life cycle can take from two months to years depending on the environmental conditions.

Tomorrow is a needed day off! I need to get unpacked and prepare for the vet clinic starting on Monday...no holiday for me!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Day 10: Saying Goodbye

I said goodbye to the Sicilianos today and started towards home. We only went a couple hours, so the rest of the time was spent researching about parasites that I will most-likely be seeing next week in the vet clinic. My mentor told me to research Roundworms, Hookworms, Whipworms, Heartworms, Fleas, and Ticks; today I got to Roundworms, Hookworms, and Whipworms.

Roundworms are a lot like Ascarids in horses in the way that they migrate to the lungs and cause respiratory problems, such as pneumonia and coughing. There are three different species, one of which can transfer to humans, so this is a very important and serious worm! The most common mode of infection in puppies with this species is transplacental transfer--pregnant dogs can have larvae migrate into the developing fetus. These roundworms have been found in the intestines of puppies as early as one week after birth. Symptoms include lack of growth, loss of condition, inflated gut, diarrhea, and coughing.

Hookworms appear to be predominantly in dogs, but cats are still susceptible to infection. Transmission can occur in three different ways: through the environment, milk of infected females, or larval invasion through the skin. Because these parasites can invade the skin, one of the symptoms of Hookworms is dermatitis. Other symptoms include anemia, anorexia, emaciation, and weakness.

Like Hookworms, Whipworms predominantly affect dogs and appear to be rare in North American domestic cats. The eggs are highly resistant to desiccation, temperature extremes, and ultraviolet radiation and can remain viable for many years. They are named for their whip-shaped body, which is composed of a think, filamentous anterior end ("lash" of whip) and a thick posterior end ("handle" of whip). Adult worms can reach up to 4.5-7.5 cm long, about 75% of which is the anterior portion of the whipworm. An adult worm can produce more than 2,000 eggs per day, but they begin producing between 74-90 days after infection, which causes problems with diagnosing the parasite, as dogs will often show clinical signs before eggs are shed in the feces.

Whipworms


Saying goodbye to the goofballs

Tomorrow the plan is to visit Wake Forest and Davidson before heading back to Toledo.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Day 9: Shame on You, Acorns!

This morning was a good day for sleeping in, as classes were cancelled at NCSU until 11:00 because of the freezing rain last night. I didn't mind the extra sleep at all!

This morning I experimented a little more with the fecal samples to see if I could draw any more conclusions, and I found something very interesting! I examined each of the samples from the wild ponies to look at the acorn content and relate it to the data I already had to see if I could make any comparisons. I created a ten-point scale for the acorn content--ten is high, and one is low. I picked through the samples and gave each of them a number on the scale and then looked to see if there were any trends regarding amount of acorns and the EPG. It turns out, that (for the large majority) the higher amount of acorns in the feces, the higher the EPG was, and the smaller amount of acorns, the lower the EPG was! I made some graphs to represent my data:




I think that a major reason for this is that in order to eat the acorns, the ponies have to eat very close to the ground (which is why they had a lot of sand in their feces, too), but the ponies that consume other things as their main diet, such as grass, do not have to eat right off of the ground. For example, a lot of the grass in the outer banks right now is very long, so the ponies can clip off the top couple inches of it without ever getting anywhere close to the ground, which would then lower their risk for getting parasites. It would be interesting to see if this would change in the summer months when most of the ponies eat well-maintained, short grass in people's lawns. Who knows!

Yesterday I was saying that I was able to look at some hatched Small Strongyle larvae, and here it is! The small and large are identified by how long the tail is.


My mom made it to NCSU in the afternoon, so I finished my time there by showing her where I've been working. Tomorrow will be for research, then we're going to head home on Friday.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Day 8: I need some inspiration for a good title...

Today was a veeeeery early morning! My alarm went off at 5:55, and we left the house by 6:45 because Paul had to get ready to teach a class at 8:30, which I attended. It was all about preparing a mare for foaling, the signs and symptoms, and so on. It would be really amazing to be able to see a birth in action, but I don't think it's going to happen on this trip.

After the class ended, I headed back to the lab to do some cleanup from yesterday. I washed out all the cups, strainers, and pipettes that we used. I then had the opportunity to look at some Strongyle larvae through a microscope that one of the grad students had hatched (pictures later!). It was very...wormy looking and had a long tail coming off the end of it. There's another research skill: being able to recognize a certain type of parasite larvae from another (there were lots of nematode larvae in there, too).

After that, I had the chance to put some graphs and data together to further compare and analyze wild versus domestic animals. As you can see, there is a huge amount of variability.


The left column is the domestic horse data, and the right is the Corolla herd.

We had a little time before the lab in the afternoon, so I got some of my research done for next week, and then we headed out for the lab, which was at the equine unit about 15 minutes from campus. This was the first lab of the semester, so it was pretty low key, and we worked on making rope halters...it's much harder than it looks! 

Unfortunately the mare did not foal when we were there, but it looks like she is going to tonight. I was able to do a milk test for the first time, and all four of the strips turned from green to purple right away! That's a pretty good sign that she's about to give birth. I kept the strip as a souvenir.


Here's the picture of the Strongyle eggs that I promised. You can see there are two right in the middle.


There's a small chance that there will be a "snow" day tomorrow due to freezing rain, but if not we'll still go to NCSU and get some more work done. My mom is driving part way tonight and will get here tomorrow so she can see what I've been doing, then we'll head home together!

Monday, January 12, 2015

Day 7: Parasite Eggs!

Today was my first attempt at navigating a college campus, and I didn't even get lost! The morning was spent getting everything ready in the lab so that we could start right away after lunch. We froze the fecal samples over the weekend, and those needed about two hours to thaw, so in the meantime I went to my very first college class, which was Introduction to Equine Science where we learned about the evolution of the horse. I found my way back to Paul's office, ate some lunch, and then started in the lab!

Interestingly, we only found Strongyle eggs in the fecal samples, but it is impossible to determine with a microscope whether they are small or large Strongyles. We started with the five samples that we got from the equine unit, in other words the domestic horses. We got extremely variable results--everything from zero EPG to 1,025 EPG, which is EXTREMELY high. One important thing to note is that some of this variability (especially if the horses are kept in the same conditions) is due to genetics and how strong the horse's immune system is, which is why it is better to test for parasites before treating them to see if the horse really has any. (We used different volumes and amounts than in the video that I watched, so to find the EPG, we had to multiply the number of eggs by 25.) Two out of the five horses that we examined had no eggs, and one of the horses only had one egg, making it an EPG of 25, which is really low. One of the horses had six eggs (EPG of 150), and one had 41 eggs (EPG of 1,025)! There are probably two reasons for this extremely high number: one is genetics, like I said before, and the other is that this horse had an injury and was being kept in a very small pen compared to the large pastures that the other horses had. The feces were not being picked up, and so this horse was eating on top of all of it, which is a perfect situation for a horse to get parasites.

And now for the wild ponies...we really weren't sure what to expect or if we would even find any; I never thought that I would actually get excited at the presence of parasites, but it really is fun when you can find a bunch of eggs. They're really easy to see, too, which makes it more enjoyable. We got 11 samples from the outer banks, which were from several different harems and locations, so it is interesting to compare parasites within different harems, too. Like the domestic horses, there is a LOT of variability in the number of eggs; we got everything from 25 EPG (one egg) to 1,000 EPG (40 eggs).

We got three samples from the first harem we saw, and they were all VERY high--one had 38 eggs, one had 39, and one had 40, which were the highest numbers that we saw in all of the wild pony samples! However, their BCS ranged from a 5-6, which is pretty much perfect. I asked Paul why they would have this many parasites yet still have a good BCS, and he said that one explanation is that the parasites are probably mostly small Strongyles, which don't migrate throughout the body like the large ones do, so they can cause inflammation and irritation in the gut but don't cause as much weight loss as large Strongyles do.

We got four samples from another harem, which were also really high except for one: one had 24 eggs, one had 32, one had 38, but the last one had seven. Because these horses stay together and eat the same things, this lower egg count could be due to genes and how strong the horse's immune system is, but it is hard to say for sure.

The last four samples that we got were all from different harems, and three of them were all pretty low: one had three eggs, one had four eggs, and one only had one egg. The fourth sample had 16 eggs, which is right about in the middle.

I made a lot of progress in terms of my goals today. (By the way, after talking with my on-campus advisor Mr. Boehm, I decided to keep only my first four goals and cut my last three.) In terms of my first goal, I learned the very important skill of how to identify parasite eggs! I had no clue what they looked like before, but now I can pick them out with certainty; I might be doing this in the vet clinic next week, too, but I'm not sure. I also hadn't previously had much experience with a microscope, but I used one for a solid three hours today, which is an extremely important skill to have in the scientific world. In addition, like I said in a previous post, I can use these skills (knowing the process of making the fecal solution, how to pipette it into a slide, how to effectively use a microscope, how to recognize an egg in the solution, and how to analyze the significance of the numbers) to benefit my own animals' health.

I definitely made a lot of progress with my third goal today. Like I said before, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to find in both the domestic and wild horses, but now I have numbers and data to show what the level of internal parasite infestation is.

I also learned a lot about my fourth goal today. I was expecting to find that the horses with a lot of parasites would have a BCS of a three or four, but I was wrong! It turns out that even the animals with very high amounts of parasites can maintain a healthy BCS (of a five or six) depending on the type of parasite and how much damage it does to the horse's system.

Part of my day tomorrow includes making graphs for this data and analyzing it a little further, and the rest of my day will be attending one of Paul's classes (Equine Breeding Farm Management) with a several-hour lab in the afternoon. One of the mares at the equine unit is about to have a foal, and there is a small chance it could happen tomorrow while I'm there. That's something I've never seen but would be really amazing to be able to experience! The chances are pretty low that I'll be there when it happens, though.

Here are a couple of pictures from today; I was also able to take a few pictures of the microscope slides with a special camera, but I don't have them downloaded yet, so be expecting some pictures of Strongyles eggs and graphs in the near future!

Filling a slide with the solution (that's the hardest part!) 

Looking for eggs with Paul looking over my shoulder (Don't worry, Mom...I was wearing gloves almost the whole time!) 

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Day 6: Going to NCSU

Today was a light day; all we did was pick up some fecal samples from domestic horses (at the university's barn) and drop it all off at the lab on campus that I will be working in on Monday. Now we have samples from both wild and domestic horses, so I will be able to compare the two regarding parasites, which will hopefully help me accomplish one of my goals! It will be interesting to see if the domestic horses have any parasites; they shouldn't because they have been dewormed on a regular basis. I have no idea how many parasites the wild horses will have, though, because the cold weather might cause them to have very few. We will just have to see on Monday!

After we got back from NCSU, we all went to the park (including Bear, the black lab puppy) to go for a hike. Here are a couple pictures:


From left to right: Sam (11), Mark (4), and Mary (6)

Friday, January 9, 2015

Day 5: WILD PONIES!

Wow! Today was really busy but very fun, too. It was over a three-and-a-half hour drive to the outer banks, so we had an early morning and left at 7:00. My mentor, two college students from NCSU, and I went. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was as exciting as I imagined it to be!

As soon as we got to the Corolla Wild Horse Foundation (CWHF), we were assigned to Mike, our "tour guide", and we loaded up into a big SUV. The only way to get to the wild ponies is to drive across the beach, so as you can imagine, the sand can get pretty deep at times, which makes for a fun ride! After driving down the beach for a couple miles, Mike shouted out, "Hold on...We're gonna ramp over a sand dune!" And sure enough, he stepped on the gas, and we ramped off of a huge dune. No wonder he said the cars out there only last for two to three years!

One of the first things that I learned when we got there was that the wild ponies travel in little herds called harems, which usually consist of one stallion and two to three mares (females). Mike also said that the stallions are not the harem leaders; the lead mare decides where to go and what to do...not too far off from real life, eh? I also learned that this particular herd of wild ponies consists of about 100 horses, but the CWHF isn't sure of that because there are 75,000 acres that the ponies can roam, so it's a little like finding a needle in a haystack. That was a little different from what I was expecting.  However, we got lucky and saw around 25 ponies in total--about six different harems! The most common colors of the ponies are black, bay, and chestnut, but the majority of them are bays (brown body with black legs, mane, and tail).

The first harem we saw consisted of six horses--four mares and TWO stallions. I asked Mike why there were two, and he said that one was still young but would be kicked out of the harem soon by the lead stallion. One thing that I noticed is that these horses are so desensitized to people and cars that they didn't really care when we pulled up in a big SUV. We were about 20 feet away, and they were as calm as could be.

There is not much on the outer banks to eat right now (in the summer the ponies graze people's lawns), so the first harem we saw was eating acorns off the ground! I've never heard of horses eating acorns, but apparently they are high in calories. However, the ponies almost always eat off the ground and because of that, they consume a lot of sand (which we were able to see in their feces). For some reason, though, they don't get sand colic often, but it still can't be good for their system to be consuming that much sand. One thing that my mentor Paul noticed was that their BCS was astonishingly good: they weren't underweight, but they weren't very overweight either. It'll be interesting to see if parasites play a role in that.

Ok, now for pictures--lots of them!
Eating the acorns on the ground

You can see the sand in the middle!

From left to right: Paul, me, and the two college/grad students

I guess that fence didn't work too well...

How would you like to wake up to horses right outside your window?! 

Enjoying the sun :)

A harem of four 

This horse was enjoying the sun totally sprawled out on the sand!




You have to watch out when you're driving or else you could hit some horses walking across the road.  

A little yearling 

This mare had a significant limp when she walked.

Eating more acorns!

We are going into the lab tomorrow for a little, so no day off for me, but I'm not complaining! Well, I told Mary that I would be done in three minutes, and she's currently counting, so I better go!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Day 4: Welcome to North Carolina!

After a stressful morning of dealing with issues at the barn (it's just too cold in Ohio!), I finally made it! I woke up to find that some of the hardware on the fencing at the barn had shattered because it was so cold, and I found my horse a couple doors down in our neighbors' yard! I thought I was going to see wild horses in North Carolina, but apparently I have one of my own right by my house.

My flight was delayed for about two hours because of the cold, so I didn't leave Detroit until about 4:00, but I found Paul right away, and I made it to their house! They have an adorable black lab puppy (that I'm already best friends with), a yellow lab, two cats, and two minature horses. Their four kids remind me a lot of our family (they're homeschooled, too!). The two youngest (Mark and Mary) are four and six years old respectively, and they made a sign to put in my room as a welcome present. They are just too cute!

(The G stands for Grace.)


Mark was sitting in my room and saw a pack of gum sticking out of my backpack, and he goes, "I smell some gum...I think it's somewhere in the room..." and he kept glancing to the side looking at it, and then I said "Mark, would you like some gum?" And he gave a sheepish grin and nodded. It was so cute.

Tomorrow is the big day, so first I'm going to go play some trains with Mark and Mary, then I'm going to hit the hay. 

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Day 3: Learning How to Count Parasite Eggs

Today was a little more laid back than the last two because I was preparing for my departure tomorrow. In addition to packing, I learned one of two ways to count eggs in a fecal sample, which is how we will be doing it in North Carolina.

The technique we will be using to count eggs is called the McMaster Egg Counting Technique. The purpose is to find the EPG, or eggs per gram of feces. First, you weigh out two grams of the fecal sample. Second, you pass the feces through a sieve into a dish containing 60 ml of ZnSO4 or saturated salt solution, which you then pour into a flask and mix well so that the eggs don't prematurely float to the top. After that, you use a pipette to transfer the solution into one of the chambers of the McMaster slide, then repeat the process to fill the second chamber. After 30 seconds, you examine the number of eggs under a microscope that floated to the top of the chambers, multiply that number by 100, and there you have your EPG!

Learning this skill will definitely help me achieve my first goal; it is undoubtably a science-based research skill that is involved in many different scientific professions. Believe it or not, it is also something that I can put into use at home if I get the equipment! I have a horse and goat that both graze and are at risk for picking up parasites, so attaining this skill could be very beneficial in maintaining my own animals' health. This summer we lost one of our baby goats (Elsa) due to Bloodworms, which I blogged about yesterday. Her death was due to a resistance in the worm, as it had learned how to mutate and ignore the effects of the dewormers that we had given her. Deworming medications are really cheap and as a result are often given on a frequent schedule (which is what we had started to do). However, deworming without having a knowledge of which parasites are an issue causes the problem of mutations and superbugs, which is exactly what happened with the bloodworms in Elsa's body. Therefore, having the ability to read fecal samples would be extremely helpful, as it would allow me to have an understanding of which parasites are an issue and need to be treated without having the expense of vet.

I'm so excited to travel to North Carolina tomorrow and finally meet my mentor Paul and his family with whom I will be staying! Time for the real fun to begin...

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Day 2: Parasites, Parasites, and...MORE Parasites!

Ok, I'm going to forewarn you right now...if you are easily disgusted, you might not want to read this blog post!

As you might have guessed, today I read about the lovely and wonderful things we call parasites! I hope you can sense my sarcasm.  Horses are hosts for about 150 different types of parasites, but I just read about the 6 most common ones that I will likely see in the wild horses. The most common internal parasites in horses are helminths (worms), arthropods (insects), and protozoa (microscopic organisms). Horses are most frequently affected by intestinal parasites and less so by respiratory, musculoskeletal, or central nervous system ones. Parasites can vary greatly in size, the smallest protozoa being about 1/4000 of an inch and the biggest tapeworm being around 2.5 feet long!

Different parasites have different life cycles, but the basic cycle is that the eggs hatch, develop into larvae, migrate through the body of the host (migration causes the most damage), and mature into adults that lay from hundreds of thousands to millions of eggs per day. The most common way for a horse to get infected is through eating grass or hay that is contaminated with manure that contains the eggs or larvae.

The six parasites that I read about today are Large Strongyles, Small Strongyles, Ascarids, Stomach Worms, Tapeworms, and Bots, some of which are the most serious parasites a horse can get and can even result in death if not treated properly.

Large Strongyles
Large Strongyles are commonly called bloodworms or red worms and are one of the most harmful parasites. Grazing horses consume the hatched larvae, which then mature in the intestinal tract and burrow out into blood vessels where they migrate throughout the various organs and eventually back into the intestine. This migration causes extensive damage to the lining of blood vessels, as the larvae cause aneurisms (weakened areas) in the vessel wall, resulting in blood clotting. Sometimes this blood clotting completely blocks blood flow, which then results in dead tissue. Symptoms of bloodworms include fever, loss of appetite, weight loss, and constipation or diarrhea. Notice that one of the symptoms (which will reoccur a lot) is weight loss, which pertains to one of my goals! Body condition score (BCS) is the relative proportion of muscle to fat, and in North Carolina I will be evaluating how parasites affect a horse's BCS, so I will be able to put this knowledge into use to achieve one of my goals.

Small Strongyles
Small Strongyles have the same life cycle as bloodworms but differ in that they do not migrate outside of the intestinal tissues, which is where most of the damage is created with bloodworms. However, small strongyle larvae have the ability to become encysted (enclosed as if in a cyst) in the large intestine for a period of time, waiting for the proper conditions to emerge again. This is a huge issue when trying to treat Small Strongyles because during this time, the larvae are not susceptible to most dewormers. Symptoms include loss of condition, weight loss, poor coat condition, and slow growth; Small Strongyles can also be fatal if there are a large number of worms.

Ascarids
In my opinion, these are the most disgusting, so feel free to skip this section if you would like! Ascarids' average size is 6-12 inches long! Not only that, but there can be hundreds of them in a horse's small intestine at one time, which (as I'm sure you can imagine) can adversely affect its nutrition. They can either create blockage in the intestine or migrate through the lungs, which can cause pneumonia in addition to the other effects, which are colic, coughing, diarrhea, poor growth, rough hair coats, chronic respiratory problems, and sometimes death. The most disgusting part of it all, though, is that young worms travel up to the mouth to be swallowed a second time...YUCK! I wonder if I'll see any of these in North Carolina.

Stomach Worms
Horses do not usually consume stomach worm larvae directly, but first fly larvae in manure of horses ingest the larvae of the stomach worms. Then once the fly matures, it either deposits the worm larvae in the lips of the horse or the horse ingests the fly. However, much more serious than internal stomach worms are the lesions that result from deposition of larvae at sites where flies sometimes feed, such as the corner of the eye or in a skin wound. This causes summer sores, which are an inflammatory response characterized by fleshy masses that bleed easily.

Tapeworms
The most common species of tapeworms is about 2 inches in length, but one of the less common species can reach up to 30 inches long! Like Stomach Worms, Tapeworms are not consumed directly by the horse; mites in the pasture consume eggs from the feces of infected horses. Grazing horses then swallow the mites and become infected, which causes symptoms such as weight loss, diarrhea, and sometimes colic.

Bots
Last (but not least!) are Bots, which are larvae of the botfly. Botflies lay eggs on the hair of various parts of horses, particularly around the chest, forelegs, throat, and nose. Horses then lick the infected areas, and the larvae hatch and enter the horse's mouth, settling into the tissues of the gums, cheek, and tongue. After a month, the larvae migrate and attach to the stomach lining, causing irritation and interference with digestion.

See, I told you parasites were lovely and wonderful! While it is fun researching all day, I am excited to start putting my knowledge to use! It'll be exciting to see if I will actually be able to identify these parasites in the wild horses' fecal examples.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Day 1: Overview, Goals, and Research!

My independent study this year is about animal research with a focus on (but not restricted to) parasite research. The first half of this experience will be spent in North Carolina doing research on the feral Spanish Mustangs that live in the Outer Banks, and the second half will be spent in Toledo working at the Heatherdowns Veterinary Clinic. The first three days of my winterim are designated for research to prepare for North Carolina, which is where I am headed on Thursday, and I will begin working at the vet clinic on the 19th.

As of right now, I have seven goals that I am hoping to accomplish, but in reality there is no way that I can map out exactly where this experience is going to take me. I might stumble upon things that I wasn't anticipating that could create new goals and a shift in my focus—who knows! Some of my goals are exclusively focused on the wild horses and others on the domestic animals, but several of them offer a combination of the two to create a bigger picture of what this experience is about:
1) To learn general science-based research skills through lab work and data analysis that will be beneficial to any area of science, not just veterinary science
2) To develop an idea of what working as a veterinarian would be like and ascertain whether it would be something to pursue as a career
3) To determine the level of internal parasite infestation in feral horses versus domestic animals through lab work and data analysis
4) To evaluate the relationship between body condition score and fecal parasite egg count in feral horses
5) To understand the resistance of bugs, such as Heartworm in dogs, as a result of dewormers and medications
6) To apply animal-related research to medicine in humans, such as how resistance and superbugs are being built up in response to misuse and overuse of medications
7) To gain a greater understanding of how the population of feral horses is controlled and how birth control plays a role in this management

Today's focus was mainly on the last goal, learning about how the overpopulated wild herds are now being managed through a birth control vaccine. First, though, I read about the history of the wild Corolla mustangs.
        These horses have been proven through DNA testing to be descendants of Spanish mustangs brought to the United States by explorers and colonists as long ago as the 1500s. However, they no longer roam the village of Corolla as they did for hundreds of years, as highway NC12 was completed in the mid 1980s and excessive development closed in on the the wild animals' space. The Corolla Wild Horse Fund then moved the wild horses north of Corolla to the last remote and mostly undeveloped land on the northern-most reaches of Currituck Banks, but these banks won't stay remote and undeveloped forever; the wild horses' future is still threatened by the pressures of incessant development. Because of this constant pressure and the decrease in the horses' amount of land, the population growth in the herds began to outstrip the capacity of their ranges to support them.
        Today I watched a series of six videos by Dr. John Turner, who is a professor at the University of Toledo and has designated much of his career to finding a way to manage wild herds all over the country. (Here is the link to the videos: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/wild-horse-population-management/id559317069?mt=10.) Previously, the only non-lethal way to limit population growth was to remove horses from the range, but that is not a viable long-term solution for several reasons. First, there is no way to keep up with the reproduction rate of the horses while trying to reduce the size of the herd. Second, once the horses are removed, there is the burden of trying to figure out what to do with them. Usually the older horses go to warehouses and the younger ones go for adoption, but again, there is no way to stay ahead of the population when it is rapidly growing. In addition, warehousing horses is currently costing about 30 million dollars a year.
        Therefore, as Dr. Turner said, the only non-lethal way to control population is to reduce the rate of production, which would completely eliminate the need for warehousing. To be implemented, this fertility control agent had to meet many criteria: it had to be reversible; highly effective; completely biodegradable and unable to pass through the food chain; cost effective; have a multi-year duration; no disruption of social and sexual behavior; no effect on existing pregnancy; and no toxicity to the recipient or applicator. The first contraceptive that was tried was a steroid hormone and was effective but impractical, as it caused behavioral side effects and contaminated the environment. The second contraceptive tried, called Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP), was extremely successful and is still used today to manage herds. PZP meets all of the above criteria and, unlike the steroid hormones, has no behavioral side effects and does not release any byproducts into the environment, in addition to the fact that it is reversible and lasts 3-5 years.
        This vaccine quickly proved that it worked as well as it seemed it would! It was first implemented in 1994 (the horses are coraled into chutes and given an injection with the vaccine), and population growth immediately leveled off. Within a few years it began to decline, as mortality rates began to show, because of fewer foals being produced. This graph shows a 38.5% reduction of population in the herd from 2001 to 2011.


About 67% of the mares in a herd are treated, and the average fertility rate in a treated mare is about 5%. This next graph shows results in a different herd. Before PZP was used, around 40 foals were produced in a single herd every year, but when PZP was being used, only about 15 foals were produced, which included foals from both mares that were treated with PZP and mares that were not.


Also, before PZP, many horses had to be taken out of the herds because of overpopulation and the risk of destroying the land. However, as this graph shows, by 2011 PZP had done such a good job of managing the population that none of the horses had to be removed from the herds.


After watching Dr. Turner's videos today, I decided to email him with a few questions, and I already got a reply! I told him about my upcoming experience and asked if PZP was used to control the Corolla herds where I will be going. He replied that yes, it is used to control the wild Corolla horses in addition to many other wild animals, such as deer! Because he mainly deals with horses in the west, he referred me to his colleague, Dr. Allen Rutberg, who handles population control of the herds on the east coast.
        Tomorrow I will be researching and reading about several different parasites that I will be examining in the wild horses. Dr. Paul Siciliano, my mentor, also sent me a video to watch on how to examine fecal examples so that I'll have an idea of what to do when I get there.