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Hi all,

Today I am working at Monarto Zoo. I generally only work at Adelaide, but as the usual Monarto nurse is on leave I was asked to cover for her. I always enjoy working at Monarto and, as they say, a change of scenery can be as good as a holiday.

First up I attended in-house gun training. As a requirement of working within the veterinary department I need to have my gun licence and be able to use darting rifles and other firearms if needed.

After gun training I was off to check on a limping Hyena. His keeper noticed he was licking his toes on his right foot and was only occasionally weight bearing. As we are unable to closely examine his foot without an anaesthetic it was decided to start him on anti-inflammatories and to recheck him tomorrow.

My next job was to check for internal parasites in our Przewalski horse population. The keeper had brought me faecal samples; I added a small amount of faeces to a concentrated salt solution and then waited for twenty minutes for any worm eggs to float to the surface before looking at the sample under the microscope. The horses had been wormed recently and it was time to see how successful the treatment had been. Some of the samples were negative which means I did not see any worm eggs others had very low numbers of strongyle eggs. 

It was then time to ensure all my paper work was done and to leave notes for the nurse working tomorrow.

Paula