A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons

by Julian Norton

  The man on the loudspeaker announced the results as the judge made his decisions, calling out the number of each cow. The number was also emblazoned on the front of each handler, like an enormous version of the number an athlete would wear in a race. First and second were announced in order and, watching from the side, I willed the third number to match the one on Martin’s chest.

  ‘And the prize for third place in this class goes to number one-one-four-seven,’ announced the commentator.

  Martin’s face briefly lit up as he glanced down to his chest to check his number. I could see clearly that it didn’t match. Martin’s number was one-one-four-six. My heart sank. I knew he would be disappointed.

  Later on, after the cows had been put back in their stalls and the excitement of the day had passed, I called back to see Martin. He was slumped in one of the deck chairs with a can of caffeinated soft drink balanced in the cup holder. He was fast asleep. It had been a long few days for him and his team and he was exhausted. Maybe next year would be his year.

  Thunderbolts and Lightning

  The weather in summer in the Vale of York, the Hambleton and Howardian Hills and the North York Moors is not always gloriously sunny. On occasions we have our very own version of the monsoon. After days of nonstop heat, scorching the crops and bleaching the grass, the humidity always rises. Storm clouds gather over just a few hours and the culmination is a series of electrical storms, often of biblical proportions. Because cattle are always out grazing at this time of year and because they tend to group themselves together, seeking shelter under trees or, for some unfathomable reason, hanging around near electricity pylons, they seem to act as excellent lightning conductors. Standing in wet mud, as they do, a group of about twenty animals each weighing about 500 kilograms and made up, basically, of salty electrolytes seems to attract lightning very readily, as the electric discharge seeks the path of least resistance to earth.

  My first experience of this was one Saturday afternoon, soon after I graduated. There was a call to a beef farm to see a group of adult cattle, in the midst of a terrible storm. I was at the surgery, locking the doors having attended to a sick dog. Rain lashed down on the windows and roof, and water cascaded over the gutters and spouted out of the drains. It lasted no more than ten or fifteen minutes, but before the torrential rain had stopped, my beeper went off.

  The farmer was in a terrible state and through the roar of the rain at both his end of the phone and mine, I could barely make out what he was saying. I assured him that I was on my way and would be with him very soon. At least I would be once I had found my way to the car, across what should have been the car park but was now a lake.

  The rain eased before too long, which was just as well because the windscreen wipers on my trusty old Ford Escort would not have coped with the volume of water that had been hurling out of the sky. I trundled along the dual carriageway, not wanting to get up too much speed in all the spray, before turning off down the farm track. The farmer was standing with his young son halfway down the lane and they waved me into a gateway, some distance from the farm itself. My car was steamed up and I couldn’t see the macabre spectacle in the field. As I wound down the window, both father and son started to talk at once.

  ‘We have eleven cattle, all dead. They were standing near this metal gate and, well, Andy, you tell the vet what happened,’ garbled the farmer before deferring to his son, who seemed years ahead of his teenage looks.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it, Vet’nary. I was out on my bike and suddenly it started tipping down with rain – proper heavy, it was. I stopped halfway down that hill and sheltered under a tree, just to get out of the rain, really, and suddenly there was a massive bang. Then, the rain eased off where I was and I came down here to this field. Next to this metal gate – just here – all these young heifers were just lying here, all dead, their legs sticking out and all lined up next to each other. They must have toppled over, just like dominoes. Some were twitching but they must have been dead ’cos smoke was coming from them all. I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I set off back up the hill and got me dad to phone you up. I think they must have been struck by lightning!’

  The young lad was right. As I got out of the car it was evident that my veterinary skills were redundant. Nearly a dozen strong, fully grown cattle lay side by side, just like toppled dominoes. Smoke was, indeed, still rising from some of them. It was a sight that I would never forget. The cattle must have been standing with their noses pressed up to the metal gate when it was hit with a deafening crash by the bolt of lightning. The enormous voltage had surged to earth by the route of least resistance and all the animals were dead.

  The smell was as disturbing as the sight, as the aroma of a vigorous barbecue – typical of those stoked up by barbecue diehards who stubbornly persist with al fresco cooking, even though the weather is rubbish – hung in the wet air.

  There was nothing I could do, other than to certify that the animals were dead, so that the farmer could claim on his insurance. I took down their ear tag numbers and (as it was before the era of the smart phone) took some photos with the little camera I carried in my glove box to document the tragedy. It must have been an instantaneous death for the poor animals, but this was of little comfort as the three of us gawped, shocked and useless.

  It was utterly bad luck and a freak accident. Nothing could have been done to prevent it.

  There was another farm, not far from the site of this tragedy, to which we would be called after almost any electrical storm. Yet another bovine would be lying dead, close to a pylon or electricity pole and our role was to examine the carcass and pronounce upon whether or not it had been struck by lightning. The call would always come in a day or so after the storm, so any smoke would have long since subsided. In fact, there were almost never any specific signs of a lightning strike and it was very difficult to confirm the exact cause of death. Crucially, most insurance policies cover sudden death by lightning strike. The farmer would throw up his hands and say casually, ‘Oh, can you just put down that it’s dead? The insurance people don’t mind. Just as long as there is a vet certificate.’

  So I would write a letter, stating that I had examined a heifer that had been found dead the morning after an electrical storm, that I could find no obvious cause of death, that it may have been killed by a lightning strike, but that I could not confirm this. It was true and I would have been happy to have discussed the vagueness of my diagnosis with anybody, but this never seemed to be necessary.

  ‘Oh, that’ll be fine. I’ll give it to the insurance, thank you,’ I would be assured.

  It always was, and nobody from the insurance company ever contacted me for more information, but I feel sure they must have smelt a rat!

  * * *

  It was another weekend in the middle of summer, and another thunderstorm was threatening, when my Sunday lunch was rudely interrupted by the insistent beeping of my pager. One of Gordon’s Dexter cows was calving and it was not progressing as it should. Gordon was a very experienced farmer and calls to his herd of short and stocky Dexter cattle were always tough. I knew I would not be enjoying my pudding for some time.

  Dexters are a miniature breed of cattle, originating from Ireland. Their small size meant they were perfect to provide milk for a single family, without needing as much forage and space as one of their larger cousins. They were bred from mountain cattle and I am sure these hardy origins must be part of the reason why these cattle are so stubborn. For all that they are just half the size of a standard breed, they are often at least twice as difficult to handle, and stubbornly refuse to cooperate or to be herded into the appropriate places. This was exactly the case today. The pregnant cow was standing resolutely in the far distance. Gordon and his son, Toby, pointed out the tiny black speck about a quarter of a mile away, and filled me in on the details. She had been calving for a couple of hours. The water bag had burst before lunchtime.

  ‘And no, we can’t get her to move,’ finished Gordon
resignedly, as he pre-empted my next question. ‘We’ll have to go to her, I’m afraid,’ he apologized, as he offered to fill up my bucket with water.

  Luckily, the field in which she was planted was flat, dry and had short grass, so it was an easy job to drive to her, through a couple of gates. I only spilt half of the bucket of water that I had placed in the footwell of my passenger seat, as I followed Gordon and Toby, trundling slowly along in their tractor. At least with half the water still in the bucket, I felt the first part of the challenge had been completed with some success. Judging by the intense blackness of the approaching storm clouds, lack of water was unlikely to be high up on our list of problems.

  Most of Gordon’s cattle were used to the show ring. They were regular winners at the Great Yorkshire Show, the Royal Highland Show and the Royal Welsh (in fact, Gordon and Toby had returned from a show just the previous day, with another armful of rosettes). This meant that even the most stubborn of his Dexters, who wouldn’t be rounded up, and most certainly wouldn’t go into a crush, would easily and readily take a halter. So, instead of chasing the cow around the six-acre field for an hour, which is often what happens when trying to catch a Dexter, we could quickly and efficiently attach her to the back of Gordon’s tractor by means of a strong rope halter.

  ‘Have you had a feel inside?’ I asked Gordon. Usually he would have done so, and made his own assessment of the situation.

  ‘Naw. We’ve not had time. We’ve only just got back from feeding the other show cattle. I had a look at her this morning, but as she wasn’t getting on wi’ it, we thought it was a job for you.’

  I lubed up my right arm and cautiously felt inside the short-legged cow. It didn’t take long to work out the cause of the problem. The feet of the calf were massive and the head was not engaging. There was no doubt that it was too big to be born naturally. I explained my findings to Gordon and Toby, who didn’t need any persuading – in fact they almost handed me the scalpel.

  ‘Whatever you do, you’d better be quick, else we’re all gonna get soaked!’

  We all looked up to the rapidly approaching storm. It was half an hour away, I reckoned, maybe less. If it arrived before the al fresco operation was finished, it would spell disaster. The three of us getting soaked was the least of our worries. Water running down the cow’s back was sure to result in serious wound contamination, and this would make post-operative complications a certainty. If the rain was accompanied by thunder and lightning we would be extremely vulnerable. The metal tractor, the cow and I were all very closely connected and we were the only structures around. We would make a perfect lightning conductor. With my arms elbow-deep in the cow, it would not just be Dexter smoke that would rise skywards.

  I had to be quick.

  ‘Hey, Dad. Let’s get that gazebo,’ suggested Toby. ‘The one we used yesterday at the show. It’ll cover the vet and this cow nicely. It’s still in one piece – I put it up last night outside the house so I could give it a good clean.’

  It was an excellent plan, but since the cow was attached to the tractor, Gordon and Toby had to go back to the farm on foot to fetch the gazebo. As I prepared for the caesarian, clipping hair, injecting the local and scrubbing the left flank, I glanced alternately between the two figures fading into the distance, and the impending storm. By the time father and son had reached the gate at the edge of the field, I had made my incision and was feeling for the calf inside the cow’s abdomen. Luckily I had put on my head-torch before starting the operation, because even though it was the early part of a July afternoon, the sun had been completely obliterated by the thick black storm clouds, and it was just like a solar eclipse. I estimated I had about fifteen minutes before we would need an ark, rather than a gazebo.

  ‘Maybe Gordon and Toby should abandon their gazebo mission and start gathering animals, two by two,’ I joked with the cow. She didn’t appreciate my humour.

  As surgeons, we are taught to be quick and efficient. This is important. The longer an animal’s abdomen is open, the bigger the risk of infection because, however sterile the environment, the greater the chance of bacteria and other debris entering the body cavity. Keeping surgery short is the key to success. This is especially so when operating in fields or in stables or barns, where sterility of the environment cannot be guaranteed. Today, with black clouds, flashes and rumbles of thunder rapidly getting closer, I needed speed and efficiency more than ever. I reached in and found the calf’s hock inside the uterus. I made a curved incision through the uterine wall, over the hock and as far as the foot. Through this opening, I could manipulate the second foot into place and the calf was soon out, landing with a ‘plop’ on the lush, green grass, that with the pending deluge would shortly be many times more green and lush. The calf spluttered and flapped its ears, peering around. It was happily oblivious to everything.

  My next step was to repair the incisions I had made into the uterus, muscle layers and skin. As I reached over for my sutures, I could just see, in the far distance, the meandering progress of a fully erected gazebo, zigzagging from side to side, through the apple trees in the small orchard outside the farmhouse. I felt I should rename the pair ‘Paul and Barry’ as I could just imagine them shouting ‘To me! To you!’ at each other, just like the Chuckle Brothers. Their progress was painfully slow and, crucially, much slower than the progress of the black clouds. They had made it through the trees by the time I had closed the uterus. I just had muscle and skin left to go, but raindrops were beginning to spot down here and there, and the wind had started to swirl, causing the newborn and still wet calf to shiver.

  I closed the muscle in two swift and continuous layers and moved quickly onto the skin, willing the downpour to hold off for just a few more minutes. Paul and Barry (as they were now called, in my mind) were still a hundred metres away and had clearly abandoned their attempt to reach the cow and me. They had set down their canopy and were both standing huddled underneath it, in anticipation of the full onslaught of the weather.

  I placed the final suture, sprayed the wound with blue spray and gave the cow her injections of painkiller and precautionary antibiotic, just as large and heavy raindrops started to pelt me with such force that they were painful on my exposed skin. I quickly untied the cow from the tractor, whipped off the halter and jumped into the car, still plastered in blood and goo from the op, as the heavens opened. The new mother licked her baby, unperturbed by the storm. It was the calf that I felt sorry for. It had only been in the world for twenty minutes – it must have thought that life was like this every day!

  Students

  During the summer, students descend upon veterinary practices all over the country. Veterinary students spend term time studying the academic stuff but during the university holidays, when those studying other subjects can get a job or go travelling, vet students are required to ‘see practice’ in veterinary clinics, where they can learn important clinical skills and start to practise some of what they have been taught at vet school.

  Once the summer holidays start, practices like Skeldale are full of students, keen to learn. They want to ask lots of questions, take lots of blood samples, interpret as many x-rays as they can, palpate lots of cows’ ovaries and do some minor surgical procedures. Of course, all of this is under the close supervision of the veterinary surgeons and is the very best way to learn the practical side of the job. Much of the responsibility for training students in the actual hands-on skills required to become a competent vet is placed upon practitioners. There simply are not sufficient cases at the vet schools of the normal day-to-day type that we deal with all the time in practice. There are plenty of complicated conditions and highly technical surgeries, referred to the specialist teams, but while these are fascinating, they are not the things a new graduate will be dealing with in their first days and weeks of work.

  There is no formal arrangement between the universities and veterinary surgeons in practice. There is just the long-standing, unwritten agreement that we will hel
p. We were all students once, and it is good for everyone if budding veterinary surgeons get plenty of practice and support.

  For our part, though, it can sometimes be tricky. Our main priority is always to our patients and their owners. It is not fair to use them as ‘guinea pigs’ on which students can practise. However, if we can get the right balance, and if our students are keen, pleasant and competent, it is very nice to have them ‘seeing practice’ with us. It’s great to share knowledge and sometimes it can be useful to have another pair of hands. We have had a fair selection of interesting students over the years and Tom was one of the most memorable.

  When I cycled past the practice on my way back from a Sunday evening cycle ride, I spotted a square, dark green military vehicle parked in the field opposite. I slowed down to have a closer look. We didn’t see many vehicles like this in Thirsk. At this time I didn’t know that it belonged to Tom, the student who would be with us for the next two weeks.

  The following morning, when I drove into work, I noticed that the vehicle was still in the field. The next thing I spotted was the smiling face of our latest student, as he appeared from the kennels. He was being shown round the practice by the head nurse.

  He thrust out a hand to introduce himself. ‘Hi! I’m Tom. I’m seeing practice with you for the next two weeks. I’m keen to learn what I can, so give me a shout if you have any interesting calls to do. I’m staying nearby so I can come out with you on night-time visits too, if that’s okay? Here’s my mobile number,’ and he scribbled a number on a bit of paper and handed it over.