The Yaks Visit The Vet

Yes, I just got home last night from my folk's and off we had to go to the vet's today. Boy, am I tired of traveling. Everyday but one I sat in front of the steering wheel for at least an hour and a half to over four hours. Bless him, Kirk did the driving for the three hour round trip to the vets today to have our Gracie looked at.

Hopefully, you are not squeamish because it is a bit gruesome. Gracie had one BIG puss pocket and several connecting ones along her jaw.

These are in the area that is covered by LONG hair and the area in which we don't pet since Gracie likes scratched behind her ears and stroked along her back. With this excuse, we missed the lumps  until they carried down her jaw line a bit and Kirk discovered them while I was gone.

Since we have no squeeze chute to put her in to keep her still so we can examine her closely and cut the skin to clean out the bacteria, we went to the vets. And since the one pocket was so... large and near the wind pipe where it could soon interfere with her breathing and eating, we opted to go to the vets. And since we had no way of administering a shot safely, we opted to go to the vets. 

I've drained the same sort of thing on  horses, goats, and sheep but either they were easy to restrain with a halter or they were small enough to man handle. A yak on the other hand, I wasn't going to man handle with those horns so close to the action and when I knew some pain would be involved which could prompt the use of those horns.

The girls were so... good today. Sweet Gracie unloaded and went into the squeeze chute at the vet's calmly but when it closed around her neck, the whites of her eyes grew large but she only grunted softly to me in distress. Then before long she was out and Jasmine in as the vet checked to make sure she didn't have it also.

I cood softly to Gracie telling her it would be alright and as soon as she was reunited with her pen mate, Jasmine, she began showering Gracie with sympathy. That is a bit of what you see in the picture. 

What we appreciated most today was that the girls loaded like a dream into the trailer all by themselves. It took a few ins and outs until they both were inside at the same time but that didn't take long and we were headed down the road.

 They did the same thing loading from the alleyway at the vet's. You couldn't ask for anything more.


The downside of the day is both girls need shots several more times. Jasmine a shot every two weeks for a while to build up her immune system so she will hopefully not secumb to the bacterial infection that Gracie has that is apparently in the soil. 

Gracie needs the immune builder shot the same as Jasmine and a pennicilin shot every week to kill the bacteria that exists in the swelled areas we can see and the ones inside her body we can not.

We have no squeeze chute so we will have to take them out to a ranchers, which we'd hate to do for fear of spreading the bacteria to their place or get a chute in a hurry, take them back to the vets or buy a chute.

We are going to look into buying a chute since it would be handy for doing veterinary work, for trimming their hooves, and for combing their hair to remove their soft wool in the spring. Yes, we had decided just a couple weeks ago that we needed one eventually, we just didn't know we'd needed it so soon. 

Despite this news, a dirty house, a garden full of vegetables needing canning, and a zillion other things to do while my body screams of exhaustion, I'm ever so happy to be home and writing to you once more.