A Wander in Vetland

by John Hicks

  Through the hole I had created we could now see the outer part of the sinus cavity straddling the roots of the mare’s upper molar teeth, and we flushed out the infection we expected was trapped there. It was dramatic surgery, but ultimately unsuccessful. The mare recovered well from the operation, but the discharge of pus from her nostril kept recurring. It never fully resolved. If only we’d retrieved that neat roundel of bone and placed it about her neck. That way we would not only have let out the evil spirit, but warded it off so that it couldn’t jump back in again – as undoubtedly happened.

  It is easy to dismiss that which we vehemently wish to avoid, and flippantly refer to “needing it like a hole in the head”; but these cautionary tales should cause reflection on a misused phrase. Sometimes a hole in the head is exactly what we need.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Frozen Fellsides, Pregnant Distrust and Rough Justice

  The Yorkshire climate is, to say the least, invigorating. True Yorkshiremen may deny this but, after becoming intimately associated with the beautiful Dales as a veterinary student, I know it to be so. It is usually office workers who tell you how much they envy your outdoor lifestyle. What greater pleasure is there than to be outdoors on a balmy summer evening and feel the caress of a warm breeze as you amble beside a lazy stretch of the Ure? Or wake to a bright sun on a brisk spring morning, filled with the scent of recent rain? The days when you flick along the primrose-spangled country lanes with your windows open and inhale the fresh promise of quickening hedgerows? But, in reality, those working outdoors cannot choose these moments of poesy. It is quite often at the dead of night, or in lashing rain or driving sleet, that the services of a vet are required.

  There were days of drear frost when ears stung in the thin air, hands stuck to metal and feet numbed in cold rubber gumboots. Mike Harkness was TB (tuberculosis) testing wild Galloway cattle up on the fellside. I was given the exacting task of helping him to clean the brass eartags, encrusted as they were with wax and dirt, and record their numbers in a book. The restless animals plunged and reared and bellowed and banged, fighting against the pipework crush holding them. They were careless of any damage they might inflict on their own hard skulls and lashing limbs, and they imperilled our cold-befuddled fingers in the process. When we had at last finished, and the lowering sky darkened to the silent gloom of a midwinter’s afternoon, and as the circulation was achingly restored to my feet thrust under the Landrover’s heater, I did wonder if I was truly cut out to be a farm vet. Much of Mike’s income came from the routine testing of cattle for TB or brucellosis for MAF, the Ministry of Agriculture. Indeed, most rural practices in the remoter parts of Britain relied for much of their income on this dull and, given the lack of facilities on many farms, often dangerous work. But I was starting to realise that there are few rewards without pain. If I were to enjoy the moments of pleasure from bringing a live calf into the world, I would also have to make the most of some of the worst jobs imaginable.

  Although the New Zealand climate is generally milder than the British one, it is at least as wet. The very mildness permits farming to proceed without a heavy capital expenditure on winter housing for animals. This can be unfortunate for vets. Instead of calving Daisy in a cosy byre, Kiwi cow 539 is likely to be at the bottom of a paddock with only motorbike access.

  Eventually we acclimatise. Sid found the Southland winters especially trying after the heat of South Africa, and dressed accordingly. One farmer, after a visit from our newly arrived South African vet, told our receptionist that he wasn’t sure which vet he’d been dealing with “because only his eyeballs were showing”. The only clue was that he did have an accent. In New Zealand, New Zealanders don’t have accents, so that ruled out Daryl. He could only mean Giles, Sid or me. It was amazing how farmers confused these foreign vets with their strange twangs. However, in this particular instance, it could never have been Giles.

  Giles had spent much of his early life as a working vet in the north of Scotland. He is, by nature, ascetic and this obliges him to eschew all creature comforts. The colder the day, the more clothes Giles casts off and he rigorously observes the old north (of England) country saying “cast not a clout till May is out” in his southern hemisphere home. By July, traditionally the coldest month in Southland, he is down to his short-sleeved shirts and ready for the start of the calving season. Mike Harkness would have been proud to accept Giles as his protégé. Disdaining the modern paraphernalia of a protective calving gown, Giles does as Mike did. He strips to the waist.

  Whilst in this uncomfortable state of undress, Giles was, one winter’s day, engrossed in a caesarean operation on a cow in the middle of a paddock. The slanting rain turned to sleet, and finally, snow. The farmer who had until then been assisting, and gallantly shielding his vet with an umbrella, had a meeting to attend. Giles had only to place the final row of skin sutures, so he left him to finish alone. Giles continued, and before leaving the farm, left a note in the milking shed with final instructions for further antibiotic treatment to be picked up from the clinic. This note was later handed over the counter to Glenda, our receptionist. The blotchy sheet revealed a painstaking work of spidery penmanship. It could only have been the work of either a very ancient and feeble human being, or one shivering on the verge of hypothermia. It was hard evidence that Giles was not totally superhuman, but almost. Where personal hardship is concerned the rest of us had to concede that Giles was the master of stoicism and better at it than any of the rest of us.

  All right, it was a challenge! As testosterone drains from the pages of veterinary history, and women predominate in a rapidly feminising profession, heroic deeds become less valued. Physical competitiveness is fading from the workplace. Daryl was never one to be outdone, but even he spurned the challenge of being the poikilotherm of the practice. Yes, I concede that cold-blooded animals such as frogs do in fact become sluggish in cold weather, so that expression – pleasing as it may seem – is confusing. Yes, Giles is more likely to run on hot blood like penguins, whose core temperature is several degrees warmer than that of most normal human beings. On a winter’s day, while the rest of us are rugged up, yet still as cold as frog’s tits – and not afraid to admit it – Giles seals his lips, discards his clothes and parades like a penguin in summer moult. Indeed, Rosie has a picture of her husband, in swimming togs, perched on an iceberg in the glacial lake at the terminus of the Hooker Glacier at Mount Cook.

  Daryl’s forte was to single-handedly tackle the largest jobs in the book. A thousand deer to TB test here, 700 rams to blood test there: Daryl’s your man. Indeed, he was a hard act to follow and had some loyal followers amongst our farmers. It was difficult not to disappoint one of his regulars if you happened to turn up on their farm when he was unavailable.

  One of Daryl’s fans owned a large sheep and beef property in the hills towards the Fiordland National Park boundary. My first visit there was to pregnancy test 500 beef cows. It promised to be, as some wag has put it: “another day at the orifice”. I’ve already described a DY, and here was the antipodean equivalent, a dour New Zealand farmer. DNZs are a rare breed, but this DNZ was light years away from our struggling DY. His name was H~. H~ ran a massive enterprise with some flair. Daryl had been extensively involved with him in an exotic beef breeding programme involving a lot of surgical embryo transfer work and numerous caesarean operations and, consequently, had developed a well-earned rapport with H~.

  When I arrived I was immediately reminded that I was second choice: “Hello, I’m John”.

  “Hello John,” (most New Zealanders say “gidday”, not “hello”; unless they’ve attended certain upper-crust schools in Canterbury). H~ spoke with a cultured voice, but he was obviously disappointed. “I was expecting Daryl.”

  “I know H~, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid he’s away for a few days.”

  H~ paused and sucked on his pipe for a bit.

  “All right then, but before you start on the main mob, I’d like you to pregnancy
test these.”

  In a side yard H~ had a pen full of enormous Chianina heifers. Chianinas are the largest breed of cattle in the world. The average Chianina cow stands about a foot taller than a Hereford, New Zealand’s commonest breed of beef cattle. But H~ had good facilities and he organised a box for me to stand on so that I could insert my arm into the appropriate aperture. I groped around inside the first heifer for some time; H~ seemed very concerned that these rare cattle should be pregnant. He looked the type who would, if not shoot the messenger, at least turn up the grump factor and make life unpleasant for him. Eventually I found a tiny uterus, which fell within the span of my fingers. She certainly wasn’t pregnant. “Not in calf,” I announced confidently. H~ looked not best pleased. The next heifer was the same, and my pronouncement met with the same response. I was starting to feel more uncomfortable. The third one came: “I’m sorry, but she’s empty [not pregnant], too.” The fourth and the fifth were the same. There was a pattern here.

  “OK John, they’re all empty. Now that I know you can pregnancy test let’s move onto the main mob.”

  I had my pride, “It may have been an expensive way to prove my competence”. But H~ had his reasons. He gave me a wry smile. “I’m sorry to put you through it, John, but we’ve had young vets make mistakes before. That can be even more expensive. I had sorted those heifers out to send to the works. They’re left over from our trials with exotic breeds. Unfortunately, Chianinas just aren’t performing on this farm. I never even put them to the bull, so I knew they were all empty.”

  A few hours later I had finished the main mob. H~ was happy with his results and I was invited in “for a bite to eat”. We got on reasonably well after that.

  H~ may have been a cultured man, but that could not always be said of his staff. One of his managers was instantly recognisable as a rogue, a very personable rogue, but one surrounded by rumours of dishonesty. During his brief tenure, the cattle on the station became progressively wilder. They were restless in the yards and charged down the races at breakneck speed. Above them Roughneck hovered with a prodder connected to the electric fence unit, and he didn’t hesitate to use it.

  One day I turned up to pregnancy test the cows as usual. I togged up in my full-length calving gown and waterproof over-trousers and pulled on a pair of shoulder length plastic gloves. Thus accoutred, and carrying a five litre container of lubricant and a spare box of gloves, I was ready to tackle my 500 cows. No one was about, but I could hear them shifting restlessly on the other side of the shed wall. No longer were they relaxed in these yards; they were now – thanks to Roughneck and his electric wand – in a place of painful experiences. I should have been on my guard.

  There was a gap between the shed wall and the race occupied by an elevated plank walk – a useful feature in any configuration of yards. In this case it also served as a stile giving access to the yard inside. As I was clambering over it, both hands full and hampered by my clinging calving gown, I heard a bellow and a crazed bull charged for the gap. In the nick of time I ducked out of line and he shot through and hurtled past my car and into the paddock beyond. Roughneck and his mates, thought it was a huge joke, as I discovered when I finally caught up with them. Close calls are not entirely unexpected when you are working with beef cattle so, after a few expletives I, too, laughed it off. But I felt uneasy about this episode. What would induce an animal to act out of character like that?

  It was many years later that one of the cattle hands explained what had happened. Roughneck had decided that he and his mates could have a good laugh at the expense of the vet. A particularly stroppy bull had been drafted off and provoked to distraction with the electric prodder. It was then merely a matter of timing to release him just as the vet was clambering into the yard via the only escape route for the enraged animal. Sometimes practical jokes can be taken too far. This was a case of thoughtless misjudgement rather than malicious intent; nevertheless, a hit from a 600 kg bull at full tilt could have been fatal. I have been accident prone throughout my life but, in this instance, fortune was on my side and I escaped with nothing more than depleted adrenal glands.

  However, Roughneck, in his dealings with us did not always have it his own way. One day we turned up to work to find a very sick horse in the paddock next to the clinic and a horse float [trailer] parked nearby. The horse obviously had advanced pneumonia and the prospects of it surviving were negligible. No one had made an appointment with us about seeing a very sick horse. Whose was it? Roughneck phoned later in the day. He had decided to leave his horse with us to see what we could do. He’d already tried using some antibiotics left over from a cow which died, but “they were useless” and the horse was getting worse. He didn’t mind how much it cost, he wanted it treated. We wouldn’t be the only vets in the world who are wary of “I don’t care how much it costs”. In Roughneck’s case, as in so many others, the most likely reason he didn’t care was because he had no intention of paying. For us there were other considerations. To leave a horse heaving its last in our paddock, right beside the main road, was inhumane and not a very good advertisement for our services. Neither would it be easy to dispose of the carcase if it died there. We persuaded Roughneck that the best option was for us to load the horse onto the float and euthanase it there and put it out of its misery. Roughneck could then come and collect the trailer and take it back to the farm to dispose of the carcase, but it would have to be buried. There is always a danger of horses injected with barbiturates being fed to dogs and killing them, too.

  In the event Roughneck’s horse died before we could inject it. A dying horse on the premises may not be a good advertisement for a veterinary practice, but a dead one is even worse. We phoned Roughneck and politely requested him to collect the carcase as soon as possible. We considered butchering it and slotting it, piece by piece, through the small apertures in the concrete lid of our offal pit. Daryl had helped me to do this to another horse once, and it wasn’t the easiest or most pleasant of tasks. Besides, by this stage Roughneck was not the sort of person to whom we felt particularly obliged.

  The next day the dead horse still lay in our paddock. Knowing Roughneck, if we weren’t careful his float would disappear in the night leaving the carcase for us to dispose of anyway. We had a dilemma. How do you load a dead horse onto a float? The answer proved relatively simple. We tied a long rope round the neck, passed it up the ramp, out through the side door at the front of the float and attached it to the tow bar of a four-wheel drive truck. Unfortunately, we were unable to fold the legs and they remained rigidly extended in rigor mortis. So, as the truck inched forwards and the body slowly ascended the ramp, we had to rotate it. It came to rest with its back on the floor of the trailer and its legs in the air.

  It took a few more phone calls before Roughneck condescended to collect his loaded float. A whiff was beginning to blow about our premises. Had Roughneck had the last laugh? Then, one morning, the float had vanished. I often wonder what any traffic following behind it on its journey home would have made of it. Instead of the familiar sight of a horse’s buttocks and tail swaying above the tailgate, a pair of hoofs projected skywards. An upside-down horse? What on earth was going on?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Death and Dignity

  Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. – Isaac Asimov

  Roughneck’s horse met an undignified end. At such times, it seems as though a vet’s life disproportionately revolves around being a handmaiden to death or, worse still, a harbinger of death. If your cover as a vet is blown at some social function, one of the commoner responses you will elicit from an empathetic member of the public is “I could never be a vet, you have to put animals to sleep”. A more direct person will dispense with the euphemism. “I don’t know how you vets can kill animals.” I have to remind myself that, by frequent exposure, it is possible to become inured to death.

  As a child, I could disregard death. It never touched me personally i
n my small nuclear family. When things died they became flat. I was convinced of this, the evidence was before my eyes every time I crossed the busy streets of Liverpool. The dead sparrows were flat; the dead pigeons were flat; the dead cats were flat. Why, even the dead dogs were flat. If I had been brought up in the country, I would no doubt have had some other equally misleading misconception.

  The spiritual dimension to death was brought home to me when I was a bit older.

  Within the four brick walls of our back garden it was safe to use an air rifle. My brother and I shot at targets and empty tin cans suspended on string. We chewed up wads of paper into papier-mâché pellets, a humane but time-consuming method of eliminating blue bottles. But the hunter is alive in most boys and one day, seeing a pigeon alight on the gutter three stories above my head I watched as it strutted and peered over the edge. My air rifle was loaded. I drew a bead on the jerking neck silhouetted against the bright sky and squeezed the trigger. It was a spontaneous shot at a moving target and I hit it! The pigeon pitched forward and spiralled down right beside me. It was only a fleeting moment of exhilaration. As I cradled the warm, limp body I saw the life drain from its blood-red eye, and I felt a deep sadness about what I had done. I had killed gratuitously.