Living in Iowa, if there is any momentous news about pigs, we know about it. Iowa is the largest producer of pork in the United States and it is an economic importance to our state. In 2012, Iowa had $6.8 billion in sales, which was double that of the next top producing state so you […]
Bleeding Pigs
Learning to draw blood from a pig is no simple matter. In truth, the technique is not so much complex as it is laborious. During a clinical skills rotation to the swine barn, my classmates and I took turns snaring sows and drawing blood from them, the latter activity colloquially referred to as “bleeding” the […]
Veterinary Microbiology in a Nutshell
Although I had taken a very rigorous undergraduate microbiology course, I was still overwhelmed by the depth of information our veterinary professor expected us to retain about each microbe. For example, we second-year students were responsible for knowing the following about each of ~125 different bacteria, fungi, and viruses: – The Latin name, disease name, […]
