NEW Zoo of Brown County, WI

Hello again everyone!

I’m winding down my last day of an interesting 2 weeks. We started the day at 9am and the first hour was spent showing our replacements on how to do what we’ve been doing. Myself and Chelsea are being replaced by technicians from the east coast. After we (mainly Chelsea) showed them around we got back to work doing treatments. As with everyday treatments included antibiotic injections, giving oral antifungal medications and dressing shell wounds. After that was complete, the technicians took some xrays and I finished up the large pile of blood interpretation. We finished around 1pm and left for the day to pack and see a little of the French Quarter. This has been a rewarding experience for me and I will not forget my experiences working with these unique creatures. I am very thankful to Dr. Gilbert at Gentle Vet Animal Hospital  and the Audubon Institute for the opportunity of a lifetime. As I’m typing this I’m safely back home in Wisconsin. The final pictures of the post are examples of “treatments” that I’ve been talking about.  Thanks for following this blog!

Here I am giving Itraconazole through a metal gavage tube to a Kemp’s turtle, this is proof to my boss that I actually was in Louisiana and not just missing from work for two weeks!

Dr. Field works on a strange wound on the end of a Kemp’s turtle nose

An antibiotic injection is given in the cleaned area

The area in front of a flipper is being swabbed prior to an antibiotic injection

An example of serious, but healing, wounds of a turtle that tangled with a shark.

After the shell is probed the injured area is covered in SSD cream and the turtle is placed in a dry area (dry docked) for a couple hours.

An injury on the carapace (top shell) is checked for dead or infected tissue