Yesterday In Teat Surgery...

The "Clamshell" Technique

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS MEDICAL PROCEDURES.

Have I said I love surgery?

I LOVE SURGERY!

In large animal practical we got to practice stitching up artificially sliced cow udders courtesy of the local slaughterhouse.

And why do cows get injured udders you may ask?

Think about the cow that jumped over the moon. More likely the loony cow jumped over a barbed-wire fence to get to the next door bull.

And have you ever seen the rack of a high-producing dairy cow? It's huge! When the udder is full of milk the teats sometimes dangle precariously near their back hooves. And when they are not careful they step on their own boobs. Thus injury results.

Call in the vet!

Anyway, back to the practical, the udders were hung up like on a normal cow on metal frames with wires. Now we had to practice suturing a vertical, dangling object.

There is a faster, and therefore cheaper suture pattern that can be used called the "Danish" pattern.

I tried it for the first time, bending a few needles in the process. (Hey, those teats were tough and not exactly very amenable to suturing!).

In my opinion it wasn't the neatest I could have done it and I wasn't sure if it could even work.

At the end you are supposed to pull hard on the ends of the suture material to make the tissue crinkle up. And mine did! Bee-yoo-ti-fool!

Now the teat looked like it had a clamshell growing on the side of it.

Apparently my suturing worked pretty well, I tested my work by shoving bright blue coloured antibiotics up the teat.

No leakage! Woohoo!