Zoo Cleanout a Complete Success...

Zoo cleanout for the semester was this weekend and oh the work that we did. It was the best attended cleanout for as long as I can remember and we got SO MUCH DONE!! One of the biggest projects was the tortoise enclosure. We felt that it needed to be larger, have more plants, and have a better hiding area... Sounds easy right, well not when there is a car in the way. One of the many challenges of the zoo is that it doubles for a St Kitts historical museum and part of the tortoises enclosure is an old car frame!!

We started by lifting the car frame (about 10 of us at a time) and propping it up so that it was much higher off the ground. Then we had to dig out all of these metal "things" that were buried in the ground and remove all of the trash and wire that had accumulated under the car. It was smooth sailing after that - just plant a hibiscus bush and a grass like plant and some leaves - and go!I hope that you can tell from the picture that the tortoises were so excited!!

There were other less glamorous jobs of course - but with all the helping hands (and a mask) it made it much easier. For all of the cages we had to work on spider control as well as sweeping and dusting... Its a dirty job but someone has to do it!
the other large project was finishing the iguana cage. We made a huge extension that is both tall and pretty wide and we hope that Iggs, our green iguana will like it. But it is important to remember that we are all not carpenters here - we are vets - so building takes a little patience and alot of guess work. But in the end, the cage was finished, our hands were sore and we all had a new found respect for carpenters and the like.

And once again, we must salute everyone who did the non glamorous work. Perch cleaning, cage sweeping and de-spider webbing... Twice as dirty as building cages!!

Every lent a helping hand at all the cages - making sure that they had a better environment then when we came!

And the chickens made out well too, with some new wire along with all the cleaning!

In the end we got SO MUCH done... I went home and wanted to use an entire bottle of icy hot on my sore muscles and go to bed, but all I could think was how much we had accomplished.

A big THANKYOU to everyone who took part in the zoo cleanout - maybe we can make next semesters even better!!

IGUANA Necropsy

It is a sad day when any animal dies, but for vet students we need to embrace this time to learn more about species that we NEVER get to learn about in vet school.

Dr Njoku helped us in our necropsy and Melina, myself, Midge, Jason, and Regis were on hand to learn as much as we could.

History: Wild caught iguana in Dominica in November and brought to St Kitts as a gift for the owner of the local zoo. Added to a cage with a full grown male iguana (they got along well).

Fed mixtures of romaine, spinach, red leaf, green leaf, dandelion greens with tomato, pineapple, canned peaches, carrots, brocolli, ect once daily with access to free water. Given calcium (phosporus free) once weekly. Escaped from cage on 2 occasions and was free roaming for no more then 2 days. Continuously pushed nose, face through holes on cage trying to escape causing bruising and scabs in rostral face and around ears.

Started showing signs of emaciation in end of January, began supplemental feeding on February 1st, 6-12 mL/ day of home made gruel (baby bird food, spinach, red leaf lettuce, kale, apricot, sweet potatoe, plums, all blenderized with calcium). Also supplemented 6mL water mixed with fruit juice daily. Started warm baths and started to build cage larger so that there was more access to light and basking areas. Found dead February 6th brought to RUSVM and refrigerated.

Radiographed and Necropsied on Febraury 12th.

Gross findings: caseous material in lungs, thickened walls of duodenum with yellow appearrance, sand and small stones in GIT (also prevalent on radiograph), facial scabs.

Want to see the pictures? Go to Studentapps\dumphoto\N022

Some cool things that we learned about Iguanas

• They have a three chambered heart
• No diaphram
• Kidneys are completely intrapelvic
• Have a bladder

For more information on iguana medicine check out http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/toc_171400.htm or appropriate chapters of Mader's Reptile Medicine and Surgery.