The weirdest necropsy ever
I'm on necropsy duty this week, and yesterday we had a 1 month old wether lamb (that's a castrated male) come in for 'sudden death'. He just dropped over. This was a bit alarming to the owner, because that can happen with some diseases that might affect the rest of the flock. Turns out not so much...
(warning- icky path stuff) He was in good body condition and everything- the place where he'd been castrated (by banding) was clean and healing nicely, so tetanus seemed unlikely. We'd opened him up, and the abdominal organs looked perfectly normal and healthy, his lungs were a bit plump, but sheep sometimes just are, without it being a lesion. One of the students was working on the 'pluck' (where we take the tongue, trachea, esophagus, and attached heart and lungs). As she got the tongue out, she stopped. "Whoah, come look- what's this?" I came over as she extracted a small wooly pouch with a thick blue band around the top from his throat; he'd choked on it. It was his scrotum and testicles, with the band attached (they just fall off some time after they are banded). I guess he nibbled at it as it was coming off, and inhaled it. At least it isn't anything likely to threaten the rest of the flock... Really, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.