No Room in the Inn

 D. E. Larsen, DVM

I hadn’t been watching the clock and was a little surprised when Debbie Walk came through the door a half-hour late. That was unusual for her, and it usually meant she had a problem.

“What’s up today?” I asked.

“I have a ewe, Becky, that I am keeping out at Darlene’s, and she is close to lambing,” Debbie said. “She has been getting large, and this morning Becky has a vaginal prolapse. I mean, the whole thing is hanging out.”

“That probably means she has a pair of large twins or maybe triplets,” I said. “Do you want to take one of those paddles to try on her?”

“This is the biggest prolapse I have seen,” Debbie said. “I think I would feel better if you checked her.”

“It looks like you picked a good day to do it,” I said. “If we hurry through the morning surgeries, we should have time to run out and check her.”

Debbie had Becky in a small pen in Darlene’s old barn. There were few windows in the barn, and the only light came from the open door and a single light bulb.

Becky was up, stomping her hind feet and turning circles. Debbie’s assessment was correct. The entire vagina prolapsed, with the cervix bulging at the end of the prolapse. The mucus plug was still present in the cervix, and it had collected more than its share of straw and debris.

Debbie tied Becky to a corner of the pen, and I started cleaning the prolapse.

“I think this is a good time to clip some wool from her rear end,” I said. “It will make things easier to keep clean. With the looks of this prolapse, we might be struggling with it for a few days.”

After clipping the wool away from her vulva and inner hind legs, I finished washing the prolapse. Then I applied a lot of J-Lube.

“Judging from the size of his gal, I am guessing she has triplets in there,” I said. “These gals just run out of room in their belly.”

I carefully started pushing the prolapse back into place. Becky strained hard against my efforts, but finally, I had the vagina back where it belonged.

“Now, the secret is to keep it there,” I said as I slowly withdrew my arm from her vagina.

Plop! The whole thing popped out again.

“This is going to be a struggle, Debbie,” I said. “Do you have a breeding date on this gal?”

“No, but she is the last of my ewes to lamb,” Debbie said. “She has to be close.”

I stripped her teats, and she had plenty of milk.

“Okay, I will replace this again, and we will put a retainer in and hope it holds things together,” I said. “If it doesn’t, we probably should be talking about a C-section.”

I replaced the vagina, inserted a plastic retainer in the vagina, and tied the ends to the wool. 

“The makers of these gadgets say the ewe can lamb with these in place, but I have seen lambs get hung up in them,” I said. “You are going to have to watch her close.”

We cleaned up and returned to the clinic. After getting the truck squared away, it was time for lunch.

“I am going to run out and check on Becky during lunch,” Debbie said. “I have been thinking, if she continues to have problems, let’s just plan to do a C-section. I can’t live in that barn for the next three or four days.”

It wasn’t long, and Debbie was backing up her trailer to the front of the clinic. I went out and helped her bring Becky into the back of the clinic. The prolapse was entirely out again, and the retained was flapping in the breeze.

“That didn’t last very long,” I said.

“No, I think I’m ready for you to do a C-section,” Debbie said.

“We might be a day or two early, but she isn’t going to go on this way,” I said. “We have a little time before the afternoon rush. Let’s just do it now.”

We got things set up in the back of the clinic and rolled Becky onto her back. There was no need to prop her up. Her belly was large enough that it hung to the floor on both sides.

Debbie clipped and prepped Becky’s belly. I threw a knee pad on the concrete floor and kneeled on Becky’s right side. I had trouble getting close enough to be in a comfortable position to make a midline incision.

“There have to be three big lambs in here,” I said as I made an incision on Becky’s midline, just in front of her udder.

C-sections in ewe are usually simple. With a ventral midline incision, it is easy to pull the uterus up so it can be incised outside of the abdomen. I pulled the omentum forward and reached into the belly to explore the uterus. 

The uterus was too large to pull up to the incision. I grabbed the head of one lamb through the wall of the uterus and pulled it outside the incision. I incised the uterus over this lamb’s head, and the head popped out and shook. I extracted the lamb, clamped and severed the cord, and handed it to Debbie.

“Boy, he is an active one,” Debbie said as the lamb shook in her hands.

I reached into the uterus and grabbed the hind legs of another lamb. This lamb came out through the incision, kicking and shaking his tail.

“Is there another one?” Debbie asked.

“I am sure there must be. Both of these were from the right uterine horn,” I said as I reached into the uterus and reached to the left side. I grabbed two legs and gave a tug. There was some movement, but nothing came easily. I went further and swept my hand from side to side. There were two lambs.

“Debbie, there are two more lambs,” I said.

“Oh, my gosh!” Debbie said. “Have you seen quads before?” 

“Once in a ewe and once in a goat,” I said. “Explains the prolapse. There was simply no more room in the inn.”

I closed things on Becky, and Debbie had the lambs cleaned up and on their feet. Becky rolled up on her sternum and licked on the lambs as Debbie put them in front of her, one at a time.

“Do you think I should make bummers out of a couple of them?” Debbie asked.

“You have to feed them if they are bummers,” I said. “I would leave them with mom and just supplement them as needed. They will learn things from mom they will never learn as a bummer. Sheep things, you know.”

“How will I know which ones to feed?” Debbie asked.

“Feed the hungry ones,” I said. “They will sort things pretty soon. There will probably be one who is pushed aside most of the time. But leaving them with mom is best if you can manage things.” 

“Do I need to do anything with Becky?” Debbie asked.

“Just keep her in a few days,” I said. “We can run by and check her in a couple of days. She will have a lot of membranes to pass, and we want to ensure that incision stays together before we turn her out.”

Debbie loaded the lambs into the trailer, and then Becky followed along. They will be happy to be back in their barn.

Becky passed her membranes that evening and her incision healed with no problems. The four lambs did well, and with Debbie’s supplemental feedings, you couldn’t tell any difference between them.

Photo by Jaemin Don on Unsplash.

Monday, October 8, 1956

The sun was just breaking through the clouds as we turned off the highway onto the long gravel road to Margery’s house. It had been a long drive to Smith River, and it would be good to get out and stretch my legs.

Mom warned me about the long drive and said I would be the only kid here since it was a school day. Still, I begged to come along to the family gathering to celebrate Auntie Dee’s birthday. I was used to entertaining myself, so being the only kid didn’t worry me.

“Robert wanted me to make sure I got all the information about Mid’s new TV,” Aunt Lila said as Mom steered around the last corner. “He is determined to put an antenna on top of our hill and string the wire all the way to the house.”

“That sounds expensive,” Mom said. “How does he know it will work?”

“He had a guy come out, and he could pick up a station from Eugene at the top of our hill,” Aunt Lila said. “And yes, it is going to be expensive. but David probably knows, after our trip this summer, TV is pretty nice.”

“I don’t know. It just costs a lot of money,” I said from the back seat, remembering the TV sets in some of the motel rooms on the east coast that you had to put dimes or quarters in the box on the side of it to turn on the thing.

“Yes, that is right,” Aunt Lila said. “Ours won’t have a money box on it, but it still will cost a lot of money.”

We pulled into the driveway. There was a large two-story, white farmhouse on the left and a large barn on the right, located about fifty yards from the house. Sparse pasture land behind the barn faded into a series of low sand dunes. I could hear the waves when I opened the car door. The ocean was not far.

The house was packed, and all the women were in the kitchen when we came through the door. 

Auntie Dee hugged me.

“David, what are you doing here today?” she asked. “You should be in school.”

“When he heard we were celebrating your birthday, he begged to come,” Mom said. “I couldn’t refuse.”

With that said, the chatter in the kitchen started, and I headed to the living room, where all the men were in front of the TV set.

“You better watch this, David,” Uncle Rodney said. “The guy pitching is named Larsen, and he might be a cousin of yours.”

“I don’t have any Larsen cousins,” I said. 

“You never know,” Uncle Rodney said. “Your dad doesn’t know that side of his family. Besides, this is the World Series.”

I didn’t know anything about baseball. I had heard about the World Series, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I found a seat and watched for a few minutes.

“You are going to get into trouble for missing school,” Uncle Duke said.

“Mom will write a note and say that I was ill,” I said.

“What does ill mean?” Uncle Rodney asked. “You don’t look very sick to me.”

“That’s what she writes when I stay home to go fishing,” I said. “I don’t need to go to school all the time. I learn faster than the other kids.”

“You skip school to go fishing?” Mid asked.

“I learn a lot when I am fishing,” I said.

“I bet you do,” Mid said. “You keep it up. I like to see a kid who likes to fish.”

I found a seat and watched the game for a couple of minutes. It was really boring. I headed to the barn.

I loved old barns. Every one of them was different but alike in so many ways. Margery, Auntie Dee’s daughter, and Mid had lived here a long time. This barn still had stalls for the workhorses, and they probably hadn’t used horses in the fields since the war.

The harnesses were still hung by the stalls, and unlike Grandpa’s harnesses, these were still soft and well-oiled. They smelled like good leather. 

I looked through the barn and ran a few chickens out of the mangers. I gathered as many eggs as I could hold in the front of my tee shirt and headed to the kitchen.

“Oh, thank you, David,” Margery said when I came through the door with a shirt full of fresh eggs. “I didn’t have time to gather any eggs this morning. You are such a great help.”

Margery unloaded the eggs, and I returned to the barn. After another trip through the barn, I headed out over the sand dune toward the ocean. By the time I got to the top of the hill, I could see the ocean.

“This would be a great place to watch for Russian submarines,” I said as I found a tuff of grass to sit on for a time. After ten or fifteen minutes, I decided that no submarines were nearby, so I returned to the house.

“What have you been up to?” Uncle Rodney asked as I was looking for a place to sit.

“I gathered some eggs from the mangers and looked through the barn,” I said. “Then I walked out to the ocean and watched for Russian submarines for a time.”

“Russian submarines, did you see any?” Uncle Duke asked.

“No, but this would be a good place for them to land,” I said. “There is nobody around to see them for a long way in each direction.”

“You better give up watching for those submarines and watch the end of this ball game,” Mid said. “Your cousin is about ready to pitch a perfect game.”

We all sat and watched the game come to an end. A guy named Yogi ran out and jumped up on the pitcher at the end of the game.

Don Larsen had just pitched a perfect game in game five of the 1956 World Series. The New York Yankees had beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in that game, and they would go on to win the World Series that year. And this was the first sporting event that I ever watched on TV.

Snake Bit in Sweet Home, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I always told folks that if they wanted to get a veterinarian to treat Salmon Disease in the dog, don’t go to Kansas. Likewise, if you’re going to get a veterinarian to treat a snake bite, don’t come to Sweet Home. Actually, I have treated one local snake bite, and it was on a horse.

The call came in the early afternoon on a hot August day of 1977.

“Doc, I have a horse with a large swelling on his chest,” Bob said. “I was wondering if you could come up and get a look at him.”

Bob was a young man, maybe a few years older than me. He was well built, and his skin was deeply tanned. I suspect it was a farmer’s tan. He wore a wide brim hat with a snakeskin band on it.

“Sure, Bob, I can get up this afternoon,” I said. “I will need directions, and maybe a hint as to what you think might have happened.”

“I live on a small place upon the top of Fern Ridge,” Bob said. “It’s on the right side of the road, has a large white house and an old barn, you can’t miss it.”

“And, do you have any idea what happened to the horse?” I asked again.

Bob pointed to the band on his hat. “We have a few of these critters around up there. We see them more this time of the year. They tell me there is an old rock quarry over the hill from us a little way.”

A little later, I pulled onto Bob’s place. He had the horse tied to the fence a short distance up the hill from the barn. I surmised that what Bob was seeing was a large abscess if it was a snake bite. I was not confident that a snake could strike a horse in the chest, however.

Looking at the horse, a large grey gelding named Joe, everything was fine except for the sizeable fluctuant swelling on the right side of his chest, over his pectoral muscles.

I shaved the swelling. There in the middle of the swelling were two deep red fang marks.

“It must be a snake bite, alright,” I said. “I don’t see how a snake could strike this high.”

“I have this road that runs up the hill, and there is a steep bank on one side,” Bob said. “It could easily happen if the snake was on that bank.”

“How many snakes do you see around the place?” I asked.

“Not many, this one,” Bob says as he points to his hatband. “And the one that bit the horse. That’s enough for me. Folks say this is about the only area where they are found around Sweet Home.”

“How did you find that one?” I said, pointing to the hatband.

“I walked into the barn one afternoon, the cat was standing in a corner with a mouse in his mouth. This snake has him cornered in a standoff,” Bob says, pointing to his hatband again. “I ran back to the house and got my 22 pistol and decided the argument in favor of the cat.”

“Some story, that might make a person a little worried about doing anything under the barn,” I said.

“For sure,” Bob said. “What do you think about this bite on the horse?”

“I think this happened a few days ago, maybe more,” I said. “Just a big abscess right now. I will open that, drain the pus and flush the wound. Then give antibiotics and tetanus vaccination, and that should do it. You will need to keep the area clean and sprayed for flies. I will come back in a few days and remove the drain. It should be a piece of cake. If he was a racehorse, I would be a little worried about whether that muscle under this abscess was damaged, but it shouldn’t be a problem. And if it was damaged, there isn’t anything we could do about it.”

So that was about that, I scrubbed up the area. I injected a little Lidocaine before making a sizable hole in the abscess. The pus that drained was really rank smelling, not typical at all. After flushing the wound with Hydrogen Peroxide and followed with Betadine, I sutured a Penrose drain in the opening. I gave a hefty dose of long-acting Penicillin and a tetanus booster. 

After spraying the whole area for flies, Joe was fine until the fly spray but settled right down when it was over. I tossed the can of fly spray to Bob. “Twice a day, the more, the better. I will be back on the third day and check things over and get the drain out. I would expect things to heal fine.”

That was close to the extent of my snake bite experiences in Sweet Home until one evening when a guy comes through the door right at closing time. He has his wife and 5 kids and a hound dog with him.

“We just moved into town a few minutes ago,” Jim says. “We moved from Susanville, California. This hound was snake bit a couple of days before we moved, I was hoping you could get a look at him. He is really swollen.”

So the bite was at least 3 days ago, this was probably going to be a replay of the bite wound on Joe.

Jim lifted Burno onto the exam table. Burno was a large Blue Tick hound. He had more black on him than many Blue Ticks but some black ticking on white on his legs and front shoulders. His exam showed an elevated temperature and a submandibular abscess.

“I was afraid the swelling was going the shut off his airway,” Jim said.

“It is pretty loose, shouldn’t be a problem just yet,” I said as I opened Burno’s mouth and used my finger to explore the back of his mouth and upper airways.

“How do you do that without getting bit?” Jim asked. 

“I keep my thumb on the roof of his mouth with quite a bit of pressure,” I said. “That keeps his mouth open, that and then you have to be quick. His airway is fine. This is just a large abscess at this point in time. I will drain it with local anesthesia, flush it, and place a drain for a few days. That and antibiotics should be all he needs.”

Burno’s treatment was identical to Joe’s except for the tetanus vaccine. Dogs are pretty resistant to tetanus and are not routinely vaccinated.

So now, having treated two cases of snake bites, both multiple days old, I could almost call myself a novice. I have talked to veterinarians in other areas about how they handled snake bites, and there is a wide variety of opinions. Antivenom is expensive, but many veterinary patients survive without it. 

Photo credit: Photo by Alexis Chateau from Pexels