Mortui vivos docent

[aineotter]

Got called in at 6 this afternoon to necropsy a cow, and didn't get done 'till about 8:30. The cow had laryngitis, but that was not really her biggest problem. The ambulatory clinician was there, hovering and sticking her fingers in everything (I can't culture that if you smear your fingers all in it, dear), and wanting me to get the trachea out so

Comments

[owlnix]

Dumb question - what are the stomach and mesenteries supposed to look like?

The pics aren't gross by my standards, but perhaps I'm a bit warped=)

[aineotter]

The stomach (in my hand, in the first picture) really should not have the big hole in it. Mesenteries may have some fat in them, but otherwise are clear like saran-wrap between the blood vessels and the small vessels aren't normally that prominent.

[djinnthespazz]

That's a huge hole. The poor beast.

[ursuscelticus]

I also did try the big handheld circular saw that hangs from the ceiling in necropsy

You mean the one in this picture?

[aineotter]

That's the one!
Bovine heads and spinal columns now have to be removed and put in the bin for incineration. Valley Protein (who picks up the rest) no longer takes them. So power tools are a good thing (but when are power tools *not* a good thing, I ask you?).

I do not know what they do with what they pick up, beyond "rendering". I'm afraid to ask.

[djinnthespazz]

Heh heh heh... probably best not to ask.

Although we may hope that these days it at least not end up in CATTLE FEED.

Man, but our society is collectively insane.

[aineotter]

I'm fairly certian *not* cattle feed (we've always slated sheep for incineration, rather than rendering, as long as I've been here, on account of scrapie), though chicken and pet food are a possibility. I'd sort of hoped it was just...fertilizer, or something, but the apparent concern about bovine neural tissue makes me think it's intended for consumption by some kind of animal.

Though one wonders...why start worrying about it *now*, instead of say, 7 or 8 years ago?

[djinnthespazz]

So is curly calf specifically in the Angus breeding lines?
Or does it occasionally crop up elsewhere?

Reading your stuff is such great brain food. It's unlike anything else I read (unless you count Warren Ellis's feed, which is gory but that's it for topic overlap)

[aineotter]

I'm glad you enjoy it!
My understanding is that it's largely an Angus thing, and that it can be traced back to one bull. Kind of like Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis in quarter horses, where affected horses are all decendents of one prolific stallion (Impressive).
http://www.aqha.com/association/registration/hypp.html

Although it's possible for it to crop up elsewhere, as the result of reduced fetal movement for any reason, a spontanious mutation, or a rare recessive gene; the technical name for it, arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, occurs rarely in humans, too.

[lux_apollo]

The mesenteries are definitely kind of pretty. Every time you post this stuff I think about showing my developmental lab, but I'm pretty sure I have students who would freak out. We were working with *planaria* last week, and one of my students didn't want to touch/cut them because they were gross or it made her sad or something stupid like that.

Meanwhile, they think I'm crazy when I tell them that they are doing a disservice to the memory of those poor chick embryos they cut up in January when they forget to change the media in their cell cultures...

Undergrads. *sigh, bitch, moan*