A day in the life of Bristol Zoo Vet

[29/08/2013]

I decided to take Dr Richard Saunders up on his offer to do a day of work experience at Bristol Zoo. Unfortunately, our schedules did not match and he wasn’t in that day. I arrived and met their head vet nurse, who seemed really nice. As I was a bit early, she was just handling prep for the day’s cases and feeding the Lorokeets which were staying in the building during recovery. Two other veterinary students arrived, followed by Dr Michelle Burrows.

Our first task of the day was to catch the Lorokeets and give them a quick health check. They showed a surprising amount of fight considering they were apparently extremely ill the day before. Shortly after Adam; their intern arrived. We’d met before whilst at Highcroft and so it was nice to see him again. Michelle asked him to take the appointments for the day, as a baby Pudu had died suddenly and she had to do a post mortem.

Our first animal was an Avocet. It had a lump on its leg which was not hindering it when walking but the keepers wanted to make sure it wasn’t anything sinister. We sedated it, took samples for the lab to test and flushed the wound.

 

Next up was a Slow Loris. Funnily enough a friend of mine was the one who brought him in; Simon…although having gauntlets up past his elbows to protect him from the very angry Loris was not so funny….He had some dental problem, I forget the specifics, which required surgery. He was much cuter when he was asleep.

A baby Livingstone Fruit Bat was our last appointment. He’d fallen and managed to break his last digit. Adam had an idea to try and repair it and was assessing whether or not it would heal by itself before trying anything. His overall body check showed he was in perfect condition otherwise and so he decide to give his new treatment a go. The details of which I am not going to disclose, as I have no idea how it fared...