Episode 4 More Creatures Great and Small

We Brits love our animals...

..from livestock in the fields

to pooches in the park.

It's the job of the nation's vets to keep them healthy.

Whether consulting in the countryside...

It's one of the better parts of the job, really,

when you can help create new life.

..or horsing around in the stables...

I spend all my job outwitting animals.

Got him!

..they're passionate about their patients.

Hey, little miss.

I am now known as the mad chicken lady.

On call when the animals need them most...

If we leave it any longer,

he almost certainly is going to not make it.

..they're the dedicated vets patching up pets,

and caring every day for more creatures, great and small.

Coming up...

in Dunfermline, vet Adam's patient has him bucking up his ideas.

HE YELLS

In Teesdale, farm vet Graham is called to an emergency.

50% of them, we don't save,

because we haven't got there quickly enough.

Whilst small animal vet Steve is on puppy patrol,

and helps a seriously sick mum.

Motherhood not so much fun, after all.

But I want you to see marked improvement over 24 hours.

The kingdom of Fife in Scotland,

home to the vets of Inglis veterinary practice.

There's no way this calf's going to come out the proper way.

With 370 square miles of agricultural land,

there's plenty of livestock to keep the team busy.

Senior vet Adam's latest patient is his very own Shetland pony.

PONY WHINNIES

No, that's not good, chap.

Being a sucker for a stray animal

has led to a house, and field, full of pets.

We've got two guinea pigs, two cats, and we've got Hector, as well.

But this adopted stray

has been more of a gamble.

One of the nurses said, "I hear you've got a bit of grass

"that needs eating." I went, "Yeah, yeah," and she said,

"Would you fancy looking after a Shetland pony?" I went, "Yeah, OK."

At 34 inches, Hector is a little pony with a big personality

and an even bigger attitude.

You're a bit of a nuisance, though, at the moment, hey?

Hector's big problem is, he's very friendly,

but maybe a wee bit over-friendly, aren't you, Hector?

I think a lot of that's down to the fact that he's 14 years old

and still entire. He's got testosterone flowing

round the system, he doesn't quite know which way

to outlet that at the moment.

Unlike most male ponies his age, Hector hasn't been castrated,

which can make him unpredictable.

He's scaring Adam's children.

Ten-year-old Thea is wary of him.

As for her brother...

Freddie doesn't really like coming in the field

cos Hector gets a wee bit too excited.

And he's too unpredictable for animal company.

Poor old Hector. He's got this big field, and he's pretty lonely,

and he'd love to have some friends.

Come on, come on. Are you fed up now?

To take away some of these troublesome hormones,

Adam has decided it's time for the snip.

Want a wee mint? Let's have a look, shall we, hey?

Are you good?

Normally, you'd castrate a pony at a much younger age.

But we didn't have him when he was younger,

so we've only had him the last year, and we're guessing his age at 14.

But it's not going to be an easy job.

I can feel that they are pretty large.

All right, Hector?

HE YELLS

All right, little man. OK.

Right, Hector, you ready? We're going to do this in one...

Go, go, go. Come on.

Whoa! Come on, Hector, come on.

Castrating an older pony is a big operation,

so Adam has arranged to get it done at Loch Leven Equine Hospital.

HORN BEEPS REPEATEDLY

We're hoping to do the operation sort of mid-afternoon tomorrow.

There'll be an anaesthetist, and an LS.

There'll also be a surgeon, and I'm the co-surgeon for the day,

on the basis that I've not done a horse castration for about 15 years.

It's a serious operation, but Adam knows it's for the best.

I absolutely adore Hector, he's such a lovable little rogue,

and I'm hoping after this operation,

he's going to be more of a cuddly bear.

But Hector's not too keen.

HECTOR WHINNIES

He's OK.

Hector, Hector, shh, shh! Calm down, calm down.

Come on, then, gorgeous. You've not been inside for ages, have you?

OK, OK. All right.

He normally lives out in the wind, and the rain,

and the storms, and the snow,

so he's not been inside,

I don't think, ever.

So it's five-star accommodation for Hector tonight, hey?

Adam leaves Hector to have a good night's sleep before the big day.

In County Durham, Castle Vets

have over 500 farms on their books,

looked after by large animal vets like Graham.

Yeah, stings a bit.

He works at the practice alongside his girlfriend,

and fellow farm vet, Erica.

It's actually the first time that we've co-habited

and worked at the same time.

You're fairly good to work with.

SHE CHUCKLES

Easier to work with than live with, you'd probably say.

Graham's been qualified for four years,

but only moved to Teesdale nine months ago.

I'm Graham.

Nice to meet you.

As a large animal vet,

I guess you really are thrown out on your own to begin with.

I don't think there's a lot, really, that can prepare you for that.

And today, Graham's thrown straight into an emergency.

He's on his way to a 200-acre cereal and cattle farm.

One of the herd of 100 cows has suddenly collapsed

with a case of magnesium deficiency, known as staggers.

You just have to drop everything when it's a case of staggers,

because timing's absolutely crucial, really.

Farmer Alan knew to call the vet straightaway.

I was just putting some feed in the feeders for the calves,

and she was just laid on her own.

So I came down to see what was amiss.

The cow's nervous system needs magnesium to function.

Low levels in her bloodstream have led to muscle spasms

and convulsions.

Possibly in another half-hour to an hour, she could be dead, you know.

That's how quickly it can get hold of them.

But with swift treatment, it can be completely cured.

We need to get something into her straightaway, which we've done.

Got some magnesium and calcium and glucose into her vein

in her neck here, and we've just given some under the skin, as well.

This one that I've put in under the skin,

I'm just spreading out over a larger area

so that it'll get absorbed into the body a bit quicker.

Magnesium deficiency is common in autumn.

At this time of year, the grass is still growing

because it's quite warm,

but it's not picking up a lot of magnesium out of the soil.

Now, cows need to eat magnesium every day from their diet,

they can't store it in their body,

and when they get deficient in it, they go down like this,

with tremors and staggering about,

which is why it's called staggers.

Hopefully, we've got to it early enough.

He checks his cows a couple of times a day, at least.

We'll just try and get her sat up,

see if we can make her look a bit more comfortable.

They always look a bit better when they're sat up.

Good thing here is that she's bright and alert,

and she's responding to the other cows.

But she's still quite shaky.

If you can just look at her head there, she's still wobbly

so, you know, that's part of the staggers.

She's probably just not quite aware of where she is.

She has had a sedative injection,

which probably doesn't help with her muscle coordination,

so it'll be part of the muscles filling themselves up

and getting the balance of salts right in them,

which is why she's not just 100% on those legs.

Probably 50% of them, we don't save,

just because we haven't got there quickly enough.

Graham's quick intervention means this cow is recovering already,

although it will take time for her magnesium levels to rebalance.

Might just go and right her again, maybe.

Right, we're going to beat a hasty retreat now.

..I hope so, yeah.

Alan has already been leaving mineral tubs

with magnesium for the herd.

Graham suggests a new technique.

It comes as a powder, which you can put into the water troughs.

So long as it's the only source of water on the pasture,

then the cows will go to that.

With additional magnesium supplements,

Alan's herd will hopefully stay free of staggers.

And this cow will be up in a few hours.

At the equine hospital in Kinross,

Adam's pet pony Hector is about to undergo a castration.

He's a sweetheart, isn't he?

This should remove the testosterone that's making him antisocial.

ADAM YELLS

..and scaring Adam's children.

The kids love him, but are slightly terrified of him at the same time.

But fond of his little rogue, Adam is nervous about the operation.

Hector being older means there's more risks with this kind of surgery,

so we have to be jolly careful.

Being a vet, Adam will be helping with the procedure.

Just putting a catheter in Hector's neck,

and they'll need a catheter in his neck

so when they administer the anaesthetic,

they can give it straight into the vein.

So you're taking this like a real man, aren't you?

Hector is taken to a special padded room called a knock-down box.

The cushioned walls and floor should stop him hurting himself

as he collapses after the anaesthetic.

I would probably just push him against the wall that way,

and then when he comes down, he's got the catheter up.

Now anaesthetised,

the safest way to move 210kg Hector to the operating table

is by winch and pulley.

In general, one in 100 horses

suffers complications under anaesthetic,

so anaesthetist Jenny is kept on her toes.

Just trying to monitor him,

keep a standard heart rate all the way through,

make sure that the pulse ox

is telling me that he's breathing enough,

and make sure he's maintaining his blood pressure

to prevent any problems with the anaesthetic.

The potentially risky operation

is run by equine surgeon Hugh Sommerville.

Adam is co-surgeon.

That's the midline incision,

which we're just stroking through the top layers first.

Just sealing off...the tunic,

which has got the testicle and all of the blood vessels inside it.

One of the problems, as the horses get older,

is the guts coming out of the same hole,

because the inside of this sac communicates with the abdomen,

inside the belly. And that is the main thing to avoid.

So this is called a closed castration, So, in effect,

with this first suture there, I've shut off his abdomen

so his guts can't come out of the same hole.

Large blood vessels feed the testicles,

which are cut through and sealed with special clamps.

Some pretty major blood vessels in here

which, you know, if you were not to seal off properly

would almost certainly cause Hector to bleed to death.

After the refresher from Hugh, it's now Adam's turn.

I've done plenty of castrates in dogs in the last few years,

but I've not done one in a horse for a long time.

Everything's just much bigger and much more, er,

kind of slightly more dangerous.

How long are you going to be now, please?

Anaesthetist Jenny keeps an eye on the time.

Hector's been under for almost an hour already.

Three minutes, by the time we've de-robed him.

The last stitches are tied off...

..and Hector is winched to the padded recovery area.

But he could still injure himself as he comes round.

We keep an eye on them as much as we possibly can do.

Adam and the team can't relax just yet.

Well done. Well done, you've done yourself proud.

And there's no let-up in Barnard Castle,

where small animal vet Steve has a full day of consults.

Dougie Smith, please.

I feel kind of that my working life is divided into ten-minute slots...

-Reuben James, please.

-Come on. Reuben.

You sort of spend your time looking to the next one

and, before you know, the day is gone and suddenly, the week's gone again.

Steve's been in the job for 17 years,

almost a lifetime for some.

I've now been here long enough that I actually have seen

quite a lot of animals from puppyhood or kittenhood

all the way through to old age

and, you know, I've taken that journey with them.

And starting her journey into motherhood is Steve's next patient.

Border Collie Ola has just had her first litter,

but owner Lynn is deeply worried about her.

She's just had pups,

three days old,

and she's not right.

I don't know what's the matter with her. She's not eating or anything.

So I'm panicking. She'd be trying

to have a go at everything in here, normally.

HE TALKS SOOTHINGLY TO DOG

Motherhood not so much fun, after all.

-You see how red her ears are, really hot.

-Mmm.

It's reading 40.5 Centigrade.

It should be 38.5, so, yeah,

that's a good, horrible, achy temperature.

Ola's high temperature indicates a nasty infection.

Where we'd instantly go looking would be womb.

I think she's infected, or she is brewing an infection in the womb.

All right, my sweetheart. Let's just get her to stand, if we can.

Ola, come, baby, come.

That's it, my sweetie. Go on.

That's it. I know, it's a bit odd, isn't it?

Let's have a feel of the back end.

Very empty, obviously, without the eating.

Intestines are...

are empty as well.

This mum's been off her food for two days,

but she needs calories to make the half pint of milk

her seven puppies suckle daily.

So I'm going to put her onto antibiotics and give her

something to bring her temperature down as well,

so we get her eating. I want you to see

marked improvement in 24 hours. She really must be...

bright and eating. That's very important for those pups.

We don't want her milk to dry up.

She's got milk there, it's just that it will deplete

so quickly with a temperature like that, so we'll get her back.

-All right?

-Yep.

-There you go, Ola.

-Thanks a lot.

-You're welcome.

-I've got it.

-Spare hand.

With antibiotics, Ola will hopefully beat the infection fast

and get back to feeding her puppies.

Across the farmlands of County Durham,

there's another mum in trouble.

Vet Graham's on an emergency call -

a cow is having difficulty giving birth.

Farmer Christopher thinks the calf is badly positioned.

The head is down, instead of coming up into the birth canal.

It's going to be diving like that,

or the head is going to be back to one side,

so it's going to be a case of correcting it

and then seeing whether we can deliver it naturally.

Because if we don't make any progress in the first sort of

ten, 15 minutes, then we might have to think about alternative options,

getting the calf out by caesarean.

At three quarters of a tonne,

mum is not to be reckoned with.

So Christopher tries to move her into the crush,

where Graham can safely examine her.

At least we'll be able to get my hands in,

hopefully safely, and just see what the problem is.

Graham can now check the calf's position.

But he's in for a surprise.

All sorts of things could go wrong.

It's either got two heads or there's twins.

Twins is usually good because it means the calves will be small.

The difficulty is, we've got to make sure we get the right legs

coming with the right head.

The calves' legs are slippery, so rope helps to get a grip.

If you want to just grab her tail, that's great.

Graham has another piece of kit to help pull the calf out.

This device is the calving aid, or a calving jack.

You can put a hell of a lot of power on with this,

so we've got to use it judiciously.

But then...

the cow goes down.

Don't sit down!

This is the scenario you don't want, where the cow goes down.

But with two pairs of hands...

Go on, lass, give us a push.

..a bull calf is safely delivered...

That's great. And we'll see if we can get his mate out.

It's a heifer,

so we've had one of each there.

..followed quickly by his sister.

We'll take her over there, shall we, and...

Off she goes!

It's nice to be able to calf one. The last three I've done

have all been Caesareans.

So just feel the heartbeat there. There's a little bit of flickering

on the chest, so she's got a good, strong heartbeat

and she's breathing as well, so that's good.

The calves need their mum now.

The sooner she bonds with them, the better. And, er,

she'll do as good a job of rousing them as us.

With a good, sharp tongue, she'll quickly dry them out.

Hopefully, it'll stimulate them to get them on their feet

and want to get to suckle from her.

-Looks like she likes them anyway, doesn't it?

-It's promising, anyhow.

Yes. It's amazing, isn't it? That instinct, you know,

no-one has taught her that she needs to nurse these calves.

But as soon as they're born, she's there.

It's one of the better parts of the job really,

when you can help create a bit of new life.

Especially when it's twins, it's a bit more special that way.

When you sign up to do the job, it's perhaps one of the things

that you look forward to, that sort of outcome,

so hopefully, they'll get on and do well.

20 minutes later, the twins are up and suckling from mum.

At the Equine Hospital in Kinross, Shetland pony Hector

is recovering from his castration.

His hormone overload led to the potentially risky operation.

So there's some pretty major blood vessels in here,

where if you were not to seal off properly,

would almost certainly cause Hector to bleed to death.

Adam was with him throughout the op.

We're halfway there, Hector.

The surgery's gone well, but it's still a dangerous time.

Horses can injure themselves

when they come round after a general anaesthetic.

The padded knock-down box should protect him.

This is some oxygen that Jenny's going to feed into him as well,

so it just helps his recovery.

-You're pretty happy with his anaesthetic?

-It's been great,

he's been breathing really nicely throughout it.

I'm very proud, Hector. Well done for not letting anyone down.

You've done yourself proud.

Jenny and Hugh make a quick exit as soon as Hector begins to wake up.

Steady, steady.

And soon, the plucky little fella is standing strong.

Hector, you did jolly well. I am such a proud dad!

You got upright. You went to sleep right.

-I'll just leave him to chill there.

-For 20 minutes, half an hour,

before we take him back in to a stable.

I was a bit nervous of Hector being

so much bigger than my normal kind of surgery.

There were some big blood vessels to tie off.

I hope he's still my friend.

Half an hour later, Hector can go back to his stable.

HECTOR WHINNIES

Just take it easy, take it easy. Take it easy.

Uncle Hugh has even made a bed up for you.

HE WHINNIES

I know, I know. Isn't that exciting?

HE WHINNIES

Adam leaves Hector overnight to recover.

Night-night!

Next day, Hector can go home.

He's had the Ritz of places to stay compared to his field,

so I think he won't be that happy about coming home maybe,

but at least he'll know that nothing else nasty's going to happen to him.

HECTOR NEIGHS I can hear him!

Hello, Hector, you can hear me!

Hi, Hector!

How are you getting on?

HECTOR NEIGHS

Run, run, go, go, go! Come on!

Brilliant!

You OK, Hector?

Hector looks absolutely fantastic.

I am really, really pleased with how he's getting on.

Greatest concern is when we get back to the field,

he might suddenly decide to do the Grand National

round the entire field.

24 hours after his surgery, Hector's home,

and desperate to stretch his little legs.

OK, Hector.

HECTOR WHINNIES

Come on, then.

HECTOR NEIGHS EXCITEDLY

One, two, three, go, Hector! Go, go, go!

Really happy to be home.

It just looks right, as well, doesn't it? He's running around,

mane flowing. HECTOR NEIGHS

That's right, that's right! It's great, isn't it?

Maybe you'll be a little less excited to see people this time, hey?

It's a great result. I'm really pleased.

The wound looks great and I think he's very happy to be home.

Hopefully, this time next year,

he'll have a few pals in the field with him.

At 14, Hector could live for another 20 years and,

with less of those troublesome hormones,

he won't have to live out his days alone.

In the surgery at Barnard Castle,

small animal vet Steve has some new arrivals.

Yep...

Amazing, isn't it? And, of course, bruiser,

getting his big chops in the way... Move, boy.

In-between consults, he's playing midwife to mum Dixie

and her first litter.

You'd think, you know, after you've seen a hundred of them

that, you know, it's all the same, but it's not.

There's something incredibly special about watching life begin.

Well done, poppet. You're being a brilliant mummy.

But there's another new mum on his mind.

Steve's checking Ola has recovered from her infection

and is feeding her puppies.

How's my girl? Hello, puppy!

Come on, baby! Oh, look at your babies. How's my girl?

-She's looking an awful lot better, isn't she?

-100 per cent.

Look at this pile of happy puppies.

Hi, babies.

Are you feeling better now?

Owners Brian and Lynn are very relieved.

I know she's looking good and the pups are looking good,

but it's nice to hear it from the person who saw her

-when she was ill, if you like.

-Lie down, baby.

Let's turn you over.

There you go, clever girl.

Plenty of milk now. That's good.

You know a litter is doing well when they can pile up like that

with full bellies and no sound. They are completely content.

She's done them really well, considering how ill she was.

Can be proud of you, can't we?

You've done well, clever girl!

Steve lets sleeping puppies lie,

after another day of Creatures Great and Small.