Contribution by Dr Julie Wilson The silence of the early morning was broken by very loud hooting which sounded like a pack of very angry pigs. The creature surprises continued as Tracy Turner was badly frightened by a 6 inch black and brown tarantula in his suitcase. After multiple strategies failed to get the spider out of there, he finally succeeded by taking everything else out of the suitcase then carrying the spider outside. Esquipulas is the community we served today. We arrived promptly at 9 to find 30 horses already waiting for us. RAVS veterinarians last provided veterinary services to this community over a year ago. More of these horses are used for farming than pulling carts, and most were in better body condition with fewer harness or saddle sores. Whether this is the result of more abundant grass than our other work sites, or ~ yearly deworming was debated. Fecal samples were taken on 10, so the egg count results will be interesting. The downside of the day was that many of the horses were ill behaved, a behavior that their owners unfortunately find amusing. Lucy Bartlett, our stern registration volunteer, came prepared with duct tape and a Sharpie so that such horses could be tagged with a number on the fly. The surgeons had a relatively quiet day with just a few castrations including a ridgeling. Unfortunately, our World Horse Welfare teammates were only available for about 2 hours of the day as they had been unable to get on the planned ferry, and then became lost. They were sorely missed, as corrective trimming would have benefitted a number of horses after they left. One of the high points for me was that a number of the students and new veterinarians were clearly excited to practice what I preached in the internal medicine lecture. I had requests for demonstrations of rebreathing bags, chest percussion, pulse assessment and more. The most interesting horse for the day was a 9 year old horse who had fractured his right fore cannon bone as a foal. The fracture had healed but the leg deviated laterally from the fetlock to the hoof. Leveling of the foot and a shoe with a medial extension were recommended, but the latter is very unlikely to happen. Adequate horse shoes are extremely rare as are skilled farriers. Long term plans of World Horse Welfare in Nicaragua hope to address the skilled farrier supply, and will hopefully find a source of affordable horse shoes somewhere. The other interesting finding was a vampire bat bite on the edge of his right ear. This enabled all of the new American participants to see what these bats look like. We talked to the owner about some things to try to deter future bat bites, including putting Zepol (like Vicks Vapor Rub) or other substance with a sharp smell on the horse. Keeping a bat-favorite horse inside at night was also suggested. The conundrum of the owners encouragement of bad behavior was frustrating. I made a point of complimenting the two owners of the few very tractable horses. They gave the credit to their horses,making me think they were definitely not Type As and would be good choices for leaders in the future if a horsemens association were to be formed. In contrast, the owners of the most aggressive horses were told that their horses would have gotten more services if they could be handled. When one retorted that the horse behaved well for him, he was told that he should gradually get the horse used to strangers. Halters rather than just a loop over the nose would be a great improvement. Lucy reported that several of the owners were surprised that their animals were getting physical examinations, not just vaccinations and deworming. This was music to the Equitarian ears! By the end of the afternoon and a total of 104 horses, we were all tired, plus a number of our teammates were showing signs of the dreaded turista enteritis. On the way back to Finca Magdalena, we stopped to see the clinic that Dr. Shelley Lenz is building on the island. The two story building will house a clinic on the ground floor and an apartment for the resident veterinarian on the second floor. We were perturbed to hear that the building, still unfinished, had to be guarded all day and night to prevent theft of house parts. This seemed odd in the face of the peaceful atmosphere of the island and the friendliness we had been shown. Regrettably, it was so dark by then that we could not see the permaculture work that Dr. Sara Gomez-Ibanezs husband, Doug Cook, had been working on around the building, a rarity on Ometepe. We opted to have an early dinner at a small restaurant at the turnoff for Finca Magdalena, a much appreciated change from the ubiquitous rice and beans we had been eating. A decision was made to begin with early lectures the following morning when we could keep our eyes open. We gratefully crawled into our mosquito net-covered beds. Tracy hoped that the nets would keep out spiders too.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 22:39:45 +0000
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