Zoo Medicine

Ever wonder what it's like to be a zoo vet? Today I can sum it up in one word: frustrating. Frustrating as hell.

I spent most of today trying to find causes of diarrhea in adult pigs. We have a 7 year old pot-bellied pig who's had mild diarrhea for over a month, and no treatment I've tried has really helped. Luckily she's fine otherwise. Anyway, so I thought I'd look up some possible causes, in case I missed something. Most of the swine resources are angled toward production medicine. Which means diseases are approached from a herd perspective rather than individual animals, and pigs generally don't live as long. Most of the books and articles I found focused on piglets, infectious disease, and diagnoses made at necropsy. I'd rather not kill our pig to find out what's wrong with her. Also, most of the books discuss how to prevent the problem from spreading, rather than how to treat an individual. I'm sure these books are very useful if I should have a complete personality change and decide to switch to a swine production practice, but they're not helping me out right now. And all the wildlife and exotic books deal with exotic suids such as warthogs. Again, not so helpful with my case. So, for me today zoo medicine is frustrating.

It's not only cases like this that I have trouble with. How do you treat a cat in renal failure? Intravenous fluids until they feel better. How do you treat an ocelot in renal failure, who would really love to rip off your face? Very carefully. We're giving subcutaneous fluids once or twice a week, but the vets in the audience will agree with me when I say that's a drop in the bucket. What do you do with a snow leopard who chews on her tail when someone looks at her during the winter? How do you give a venomous snake that won't eat an antibiotic that only comes as a pill? How do you diagnose hypothyroidism in a Red Panda when no one else has ever measured normal thyroid levels in them? These are the sorts of things I deal with every day. I love my job, I really do. I'd prefer these sorts of problems to convincing people to part with their money for their pets. Is it weird that I'd rather deal with animals that could kill me than clients at a private practice? Maybe. But it's the truth. Zoo medicine is frustrating on many levels, but I would rather be a zoo vet than anything else.