A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons

by Julian Norton

  Little did we know what had happened until Sue reappeared, tousled and smoky. She related the story, finishing by saying pitifully, ‘Julian, I was absolutely gutted.’

  I expected her to explain how mortified she had been to inflict such devastation on a small farm and how close to disaster it had been, but no.

  ‘I was out on call early this morning and I then found myself surrounded by all these lovely firemen and I hadn’t even had chance to put my make-up on!’

  Luna the Easter Bunny

  I’d spent much of Easter Sunday out on visits. Easter weekend is always busy with lambings and calvings and the inevitable accidents and injuries that ensue as people get out and about in the spring sunshine on their horses, or with their dogs. When I eventually returned home, I caught the tail end of a family argument. Archie, my youngest son, who was ten, came stomping down the stairs clutching his moneybox and looking grumpy. Jack, his older brother, had struck a deal with him to pay half of an annual membership to Xbox Live, and was shouting at him from the sitting room.

  ‘Archie, you owe Mum twenty pounds. She’s paid it on her credit card.’

  My wife Anne was puzzled. She couldn’t work out why Archie was upset. I put the kettle on and listened, trying to keep out of it. I kept well clear of all things to do with both computer games and their online subscriptions. It was not my department. I could imagine Jack’s canny trick though, because I remembered brokering a similar deal with my younger sister, Kate, many years ago when I was about the same age. I had persuaded her to buy a large supply of my spare ‘swaps’ of Star Wars cards. Poor Kate had no interest in Star Wars whatsoever, but such is the persuasive power of an older brother.

  ‘What’s the matter, Archie?’ asked Anne. ‘I thought you had agreed this with Jack?’

  Tears welled up in Archie’s eyes.

  ‘I don’t want Xbox Live. None of my friends play on it, and all those games Jack plays are twelve certificates and I’m not allowed to play on them … and anyway …’

  Then came the killer blow.

  ‘… I’m saving up for a rabbit!’

  He had his mother right where he wanted her. He had just said he had no interest in the computer and wanted a fluffy pet instead. What parent could object to such a beautifully clear argument? Archie was a genius. So either by design, cunning or good fortune the die was cast. He started researching rabbits. How to care for them, what to feed them, what to do, what not to do, and the next thing I knew, I arrived home for lunch one day the following week to find a luxury hutch being assembled in the kitchen.

  Archie had saved up enough money and a date was set for the purchase of the fluffy pet. I wasn’t that keen on rabbits. My main experiences of them were as nervous, stricken pets often having been confined to a tiny little hutch at the end of a garden, long since forgotten about by a child who had grown up and moved on to other things. I did not want this fate to befall a rabbit under our care.

  ‘Have we discussed getting this rabbit?’ I ventured to Anne when Archie, by now in full rabbit mode, was out of earshot. Usually these things necessitated a lengthy family debate. At least as much debate as the acquisition of the blooming Xbox. I didn’t want that either.

  ‘Well, I told you he was saving up for one. He’s already got the guinea pigs so it won’t make that much difference. You can’t tell him he can’t have one now!’

  So before the Easter holidays came to an end, off they went to choose the rabbit. I was at work (as usual). We had decided in advance that it should be male, and that we (I) would castrate it. Female rabbits can be bad-tempered, and spaying them is a risky business. Halfway through the morning, my phone rang. It was Anne.

  ‘Well, he’s found one he likes, but it’s female – what shall I do?’

  I pondered for a moment or two, before giving my well-considered veterinary answer.

  ‘Is it cute?’

  ‘Well, it’s definitely the best one – it came straight up to him, and seems fit and healthy.’

  I spoke to Archie.

  ‘Arch, can you send me a photo?’

  A moment or two later, my phone pinged, and a picture of a little white rabbit with brown spots and big ears appeared on the screen, standing up on her back legs and peering at the camera.

  ‘Cute enough,’ I texted back. ‘Get that one.’

  And so Luna arrived to join the two guinea pigs and the dog. It was the start of a wonderful friendship. Between me and a rabbit.

  To say Luna was cute was an absolute understatement. Tiny and fluffy and endearing, we all fell in love with her as soon as she arrived. Archie immediately spruced up her hutch. It was large and cosy in equal measure and nestled in a sheltered spot in the garden. Her next present was an outdoor run so she could play on the grass and eat its healthy lush stems. The correct feeding of rabbits is critical to their health. The natural diet of a rabbit is based almost entirely on grass and any significant deviation from this main foodstuff can lead to severe deficiencies and ill health. There was some pioneering research undertaken by Francis Harcourt-Brown, a veterinary surgeon from Harrogate who specialized in rabbits, in the 1990s. She showed that wild rabbits – which ate exclusively grass – had skulls with the correct amount of bone strength. Pet rabbits fed on the muesli-type diet beloved of many pet shops at the time developed weak bones both in their skull and the rest of their skeleton, making them prone to spinal fractures and, just as bad, loose teeth. This was also shown to be a key risk factor in the development of dental and facial abscesses, as bacteria could invade the delicate structures and cause havoc.

  Luna, we resolved, would have a diet full of large amounts of grass through most of the year. Good quality feeding hay would support her nutritional needs in the winter when there wasn’t much grass, and pelleted rabbit food – just an eggcupful a day, Archie assured me – should then be all she would need, with extra treats comprising dandelions, parsley, mint, basil, rocket and anything else left over from the vegetable patch. Oh, and the odd branch from an apple or pear tree so she could nibble on the bark. Luna was all set to be the healthiest rabbit on the planet.

  We put the outdoor pen on the lawn, right up close to the one that the guinea pigs – Sparkle and Shine – lived in during the day. Their outdoor pen was shaped like a Toblerone, with an outside and an inside compartment, and they would scurry and squeak in and out, taking sneaky peeks at their new friend, just the same size as them, but fluffier and with bigger ears. They had never seen a rabbit before, but it was clear by watching their curious and inquisitive behaviour that they approved of the new addition. They could just about get their noses together through the wire. Despite all Archie’s information stating that rabbits and guinea pigs should NEVER be mixed, we couldn’t really see why it would be a problem. The pigs were pretty robust and Luna was only little. Under close supervision, the three of them were soon happily eating grass together in Luna’s larger outdoor pen. The guinea pig Toblerone hutch was looking for a new home – it was too small for the three of them.

  A few weeks later I went to do a house visit to see Blackie, a stray cat that had been adopted by one of our neighbours. He was still quite nervous and timid, so was living in an outbuilding. Blackie needed a health check, some blood tests, his vaccinations and some worming treatment, so I had taken him back to the practice in a cat basket, and returned with him later that day. His owner was delighted and we spent quarter of an hour or so in the garden, as Blackie rushed back to the safety of his shed. I couldn’t help but notice, at the bottom of their garden, a rather splendid wire enclosure, which housed about five pet ducks. It was almost big enough for an adult to stand up in, it had a detachable plastic roof and a door which could be opened and closed from both inside and out. It looked just the thing for two guinea pigs and a little white rabbit. I got the details, and before the end of the week, the third rabbit house had arrived in a massive flat pack. We had spent more money on the half-kilogram ball of fluff in just two weeks than we had ever inv
ested in any other family pet!

  Once it had been expertly built by Jack, the animals had a magnificent place to play. It was big enough for an array of toys – tubes to hide in, balls to push around and platforms of different levels on which Luna could climb. I would often go in, sit on an upturned bucket with my cup of tea and talk to her. She was more interested in my conversation than Sparkle and Shine were – they mostly just liked eating. We covered all the main topics of conversation during that first springtime, over a lunchtime sandwich or occasionally a post-work gin and tonic (both of those for me, not the rabbit). Luna knew all the clinical conundrums that I had come across during the day and she wrinkled up her nose and licked my hand as if to offer support.

  As Luna grew older and bigger, Anne, Archie and I knew she needed to be spayed. Anne, although a very competent veterinary surgeon herself, completely refused to undertake the operation, not being keen on operating on her own pets. The job would clearly fall to me and it was not one that I was looking forward to. Rabbits are traditionally viewed as having an increased anaesthetic risk compared with other animals. Statistically, the risk of an anaesthetic death in a healthy dog is about one in two thousand. Rabbits don’t compare well, with their chances of not waking up from surgery as high as about one in eighty. So, putting a rabbit under anaesthetic is not something to enter into lightly – especially when it is the favourite pet of your youngest son and also your new tea-drinking companion.

  We had explained the pros and cons to Archie in great detail. A female rabbit is very much more healthy if she is spayed. The risk of uterine and ovarian cancer is eliminated by having a rabbit spayed since those organs are completely removed. Given that this type of cancer is the commonest cause of life-limiting illness in female rabbits, that alone is a justifiable reason. Rabbits that are not spayed come into season and become bad-tempered and unpleasant companions for guinea pigs and grumpy pets for their owners. In short, we all knew the operation was important, but it didn’t make the day of Luna’s visit to the clinic any easier.

  Manfully, Archie brought Luna into the practice on his way to school. He openly admitted that he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his lessons all day.

  ‘Take your phone, Arch,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll give you a ring at playtime to let you know how she is.’

  Taking mobile phones into school wasn’t really allowed, but I thought we could swerve the strict rules today. Archie took a deep breath as he stroked Luna’s fluffy head and said goodbye.

  ‘I know she’s in good hands,’ he said bravely as he got back into the car to go to school.

  Twenty minutes later, I took an equally deep breath and made my first incision. The scalpel did its work with typical precision and I was soon peering inside the abdomen of my fluffy little friend, probing carefully with forceps to identify her uterus. Luna was a healthy, young rabbit. She had an impeccable diet, ran around a lot and got plenty of fresh air. There was not a trace of the excessive abdominal fat that we often find, which can make surgery like this more complicated. I glanced up at India, our new trainee nurse, for reassurance about the anaesthetic. A nod put me at ease. I tried not to alert India to the fact that I was more anxious than usual, although due to the uncharacteristic tremor of my hands, she knew full well that I would only be happy when this patient was sitting up again, munching on her pile of basil and mint.

  The surgery went perfectly and, despite my nerves, Luna was indeed soon back in recovery, her head lolling on top of the optimistically placed pile of herbs that Archie had carefully collected before school. It is important that rabbits start eating quite soon after they wake up from an anaesthetic, so the intestines continue to work, but at this stage the foliage was more useful as a pillow for her weary head.

  My phone was back in action as I ‘WhatsApp-ed’ a picture of our favourite rabbit to Archie.

  ‘She’s fine, Arch. Everything’s gone well. Have a good day at school,’ I typed at the bottom of the photo.

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ came the immediate and phlegmatic reply that could only come from a ten-year-old boy. ‘I’m glad she’s not dead.’

  The Last Lamb of Spring

  ‘And you’d better be bloody quick abart it, too!’ were the last few words I heard before the telephone went dead.

  This was ironic because Dave North had just spent the last twenty-five minutes talking me through the problems that this particular sheep was having, as well as the lambing problems of the last half a dozen sheep on his farm. He was renowned within the practice for his lengthy telephone conversations and this morning’s chat was no different. Had he been as succinct as most farmers were when they had a ewe to lamb, I would already have been kneeling beside the sheep and the lambs would probably already have been delivered.

  So as soon as I’d finished my lengthy conversation, I wrote the visit in the daybook, signed my initials next to it and before long I was in my car, heading out to see him and his sheep. I was already steeling myself for a barrage of thoughts and theories about every imaginable farming and animal-related topic. Dave had a lot of theories.

  Once I arrived at the end of his farm track, it took a further full ten minutes before I pulled up outside the farmhouse – an impressive stone and brick building that looked as if it dated back to the seventeenth century – because the track was one of those that wound through fields and therefore had a multitude of gates. These tracks are the nemesis of a vet in a hurry. Stop, climb out of car, open gate, climb back into car, drive through, stop, climb out of car, close gate, climb into car, drive fifty metres and repeat – as many times as there are gates. My first experience of gated farm tracks like this was when I was a veterinary student seeing practice in Skipton. The senior partner was heading out to calve a heifer and he went out of his way to come and find me.

  ‘Ah! You must be the student.’

  Although I hadn’t been keeping a low profile, I had not spent any time with the senior vet, who was called Ian. He always seemed to be busy and I didn’t want to get in his way and slow him up.

  ‘Would you like to come and see this calving with me? It’s a bit of a trek, but this farmer is good at calving his cows, so if he’s called us in, it’s likely to be a caesarian. You should come along.’

  I was pleased to have been asked, so I wasted no time in leaping into his four-by-four, even though it was a cold and dark March evening, just before the surgery was about to shut up for the night. I should have been getting on my bike to cycle back to the caravan that was acting as my lodgings for the fortnight.

  The farm was right on the top of a moor and it was a cold and windy night. My job, it turned out, was not to fill syringes or assist with the surgery, but to open about twenty gates that were dotted every few hundred metres across the moor. By about the fifth I had worked this out.

  ‘I see why you wanted me to come to experience this calving now!’ I said and the serious face of the older vet cracked into a smile.

  ‘Yes, you’re right! But it’s a great help to me – you’ve saved me loads of time.’

  The lane to Dave’s farm wasn’t quite as long as that one had been, but its gates were, nonetheless, numerous and it took me some time to reach the farm, where I expected to find Dave marching backwards and forwards impatiently, outside his lambing shed. But there was nobody around at all, so I went to knock on the door of the impressive farmhouse.

  ‘Come in,’ was the unusually terse response from within the kitchen. I ventured inside.

  ‘Ah! You’re here,’ he continued, looking relieved. ‘Thanks for coming. She’s having a few problems and I’ll be bloody buggered if I can lamb her. Too much of a bloody job for me, I’m afraid.’

  Dave looked just like Claude Greengrass from the television programme Heartbeat. He was rather rotund, with bushy hair and, as he stood up from the kitchen table at which he had been sitting, it became evident he was wearing a long coat fastened around his middle with bailer twine. His cigar stayed in his mouth through all of this
introductory chat.

  ‘She’s in here,’ he explained and I expected him to don his wellies and show me to the nearby farm building. But Dave walked from the kitchen into the adjacent utility room, in which there was a washing machine, a medicine cabinet and a lambing pen made of wooden hurdles along two sides, the other two sides being the washing machine and the wall.

  ‘It’s cold out and I thought she stood a better bloody chance in here where it was warm,’ he said, sensing that I was surprised to see a sheep in the house.

  ‘Okay. Well, let’s have a look. Has she been on long?’

  ‘Oh, she started last night. That’s when I brought her in. I’ve been watching her all night and nowt’s happened. That’s why you’re here. She’s abart bloody buggered, poor lass. That’s why I wanted you as soon as possible.’

  The poor ewe did look exhausted from her attempts to give birth, lying as she was in the straw-lined pen, between the kitchen appliances. At least there was a hot tap nearby and I wasted no time in filling up my bucket with warm water for a change. This was shaping up to be a luxurious lambing experience and one that I would never forget!

  After cleaning my hands and applying lubricant, I felt for the lamb. It was very clear why the sheep was not managing on her own. The lamb was enormous.

  ‘Dave, this lamb is massive. It’s never going to come out this way. We’ll need to do a caesarian.’

  Well, it was as if I had just suggested that Dave sold his mother into slavery. He had very little knowledge or experience of this operation, and the idea obviously filled him with fear.

  ‘Oh, I’m not so sure abart that! Can you not get it art t’ normal route?’

  ‘Dave, the lamb is massive and that is why it’s not coming. Everything is lined up. The head and front legs are there, but it’s just too big. I can pull and pull with my lambing ropes, but it’ll never come out this way. Honest.’