Abscesses Continued

To update from my last post, Pokey has been handling his catheter situation amazingly well! He is so well behaved when we flush his eye out, it's quite unbelievable. Crud has been coming out of his eye but the fact that it is draining is a good sign. Plus he has not developed a temperature and remains in good shape otherwise.

Chester is another one of the pigs with an abscess. He had his lanced and drained on Tuesday. He now has gauze inserted. The string you see hanging out is from the gauze that is in his mouth. Chester is one of the first boys that I met here. He used to be in the East field. This was the first field I learned to feed in and learned which pigs got which medications and such. Chester was always at the fence ready to go! Now he resides in the pens while he heals.

Before he had his abscess lanced Chester would always flip his pool and/or water bowl into his wallow. This boy loves his wallow full of water! He cannot have a wallow or pool now as he heals. I'm sure he is antsy to get back into some mud.

Meet Pokey

This is Pokey. It was noticed that Pokey had a rather large abscess. The area around his right eye was swollen. This ended up being something that we couldn't take care of ourselves, due to the nature of the abscess and its location. Pokey was checked out by one of our veterinarians while under anesthesia. There was a hole that was visible next to his eye. She put a probe in to see where it led, it went all the way behind his eye. The abscess was located behind his eye.

She was able to drain his abscess as much as possible and then insert the catheter that you see. It goes into the hole and is attached to his forehead. This enables us here at Ironwood to flush it so that an infection does not develop.

Abscesses are VERY common here. We have a few with large abscesses right now that we must lance and drain. They are under close observation and put into our pens. These must be watched carefully for they can turn into messy infections if not taken care of and monitored. We have one girl out in our "Lifers" pens. It had been lanced and now we are just monitoring it for extra pus. It has been doing well.

If you are unsure of what an abscess is, it is basically a collection of pus that occurs when tissue gets infected. The surrounding area then gets inflammed. These are painful, especially when they occur in an area such as the mouth. You can imagine how painful eating would be.

It's also very important that we find out if swelling on a pig is an abscess or not. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it ends up being an infection, tumor or some form of cancer.

You can imagine the vet bills that Ironwood has. Abscesses are just one of the many common medical issues we have here. Without receiving the necessary attention the pigs would be in serious pain and many issues could lead to death.


Despite his current, guarded condition Pokey is still very friendly and loves being rubbed. Check out this smile!

Wallows

There are many fulfilling parts to working at Ironwood. I especially find filling and cleaning the wallows a fulfilling part of this job. While filling up the wallows with water some of the pigs come over and wait, or if they just can't wait they get right in so I can spray them with the hose. Not all pigs like this but they'll let you know. It's really great to see a pig enjoy a wallow you just filled. Immediately seeing the purpose of what I've just done is awesome. Wallows help keep the pigs cool and their skin protected. We fill all of the wallows daily here and are sure to rake them and keep them as clean as we can.


Tiffany and Mr. T-Bone aren't in the water but laying close by in the shade.

Skin Cancer

As I'm realizing how common sun burn and skin cancer are among pigs, greatly in pink/white pigs, I thought I'd make a post about it. A lot of the pigs here at Ironwood have cancer sores. Unless they're bleeding you don't really think much of them. They are black spots/scabs which fall off and leave the spot bleeding.

Yesterday I noticed that most of Archer's sores were open and bleeding. Archer is one of my favorites. His markings are adorable and he's very sweet. As you can see he has black spots over both of his eyes.


Today his sores are scabbed over and not looking as bad. I can only imagine how painful they are, especially when they are open and bleeding. I will try and get a picture of them when they are open.


You can see that on the lower part of his side there are a bunch of black spots. These are his cancer spots. To help prevent this issue and the severity we use Zinc Oxide Ointment. Some of the sponsors help supply this. It's definitely a necessity out here.

It's About Memorization

I've been learning a ton here at Ironwood. The biggest part is learning the pigs. When I worked at Pete and Macs we would have over 100 dogs at a time and I could easily tell them all apart. Here, we have around 600 pigs which are mostly black and pretty similar looking. A lot of them are on particular medications or need to be separated to eat or have a special diet. Knowing who is who is so important so that the proper care is given. There are 4 or 5 fields that Mary, one of the owners, hopes to have me feeding and medicating by myself within the next 3 days. I feel confident about it, it's just a lot to take in.



First thing we do in the mornings here is feeding and medications, followed by spreading out hay. Feeding and medications alone take a couple of hours if not more. After we feed we might take a little break and then water. Watering probably sounds easy, but really when you have 12 or so acres of water bowls, pools, wallows and self filling bowls it is quite time consuming! By the time we finish with all of this we can get to the extra things that need to be done. Fixing pig houses, tarps, wallows, cutting carpet, changing blankets, raking, digging, etc. There is always something to be done. During the last couple of hours of the shift a couple of us will prepare evening and morning medications. I caught on to this quickly as it is similar to what we did at Pete and Macs. Here is the station I was using with some of the bread I had prepared.


Today we cleaned out Dee's nose. She could barely breathe. After she was rangled up Mary flushed out her nose for a while. With the flushing and a couple of good sneezes Dee can breathe well again!


Today was also the day that Toby and Taylor went to their new home. They were 2 of the babies here that were adopted. Sweethearts for sure!

Day Off #1

I had today off, and definitely took advantage of this. I took 2 naps, hung up all my clothing as I picked up my hangers yesterday and caught up on some other little stuff. I also took the pugs on 2 desert walks. I enjoy these walks as much as they do I'm sure. It's ridiculously nice out and knowing that I'm so far away from everything makes me so happy.















As swine flu season is picking up we are taking extra precautions. More hand sanitizing and we will be having less visitors starting October or so.

Yesterday another rattlesnake was found and relocated. The day before a packrat was found and relocated. I think it's about one rattlesnake per week if not more at this point. I haven't run into one yet but I'm sure my day is coming. Things I have seen include: scorpion, little snake, coyote, owl and other little guys like lizards bunnies and squirrels.



In this post I'm throwing in some random photos. I do love the pigs here. The ones that love attention, the shy ones and even the ornery ones like Arnold, "Arnie", that bit my leg. May they all enjoy their time here.

Day 1 of Working

Another pig passed away today, Rolland. He was one of the first ones I met. He was old and just going downhill. His pal Emily will surely miss him, as well as the rest of us here.

Today was a very productive day. I worked in most of the fields and helped prepare medications for tomorrow morning. I'm still full of energy.

So for today I thought I'd show you the hogs. However, only one would come out this afternoon and only for a quick drink! Then back inside to slobber on one of the others. There are 4 in this barn, and another off in a different field. They're all very nice!