Speaking of which, I'm not entirely sure that it's completely sunk in yet. I'm going to vet school in a few months. Whoa. When I told the zoo vet I got in, she hugged with me a baby kangaroo. You'd think that would be a enough to make you realize that it's actually happening. Maybe it won't hit me until I get there...
But I have one week of undergrad left. That's it. Another whoa. And as soon as my last final is over, I'm packing up and heading to camp for half the summer. So I'll have half a summer of money making, animal adopting, kid teaching, dead animal cutting, organ preserving, and flesh eating beetle feeding. More details on that awesomeness later, though. And then in July, I'm moving, and my vet school preparation will begin.
I have to get a rabies vaccination before I start school. I wonder if I get a tag for it? If so, do I have to start wearing a collar? I was freaking out about it at first because I thought the shots were in your stomach, but apparently that's only if you get bitten by something first. So it's just in my arm, and I am very relieved.
They are also having a big retreat for the incoming class the week before school starts. It's at some camp, and we are supposed to do a bunch of team-building, friend-making exercises. So that will be fun... a bunch of antisocial, awkward vet students trying to do physical activities together... I mean, it's totally necessary. It forces us to make friends, but it's going to be painful. I feel awkward just thinking about it.
Since I don't have any recent animal adventures to share, here is one of my fondest memories from last summer at camp:
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| Isn't this one of the coolest pictures you have ever seen?!? |
That, my friends, is a Columbian Red-Tail Boa in the process of giving birth. Boas are one of the few (but not super few) snake species that have live births, and I was fortunate enough to get to see one actually happening. It was seriously one of the most awesome things I've ever experienced in my life. She had a total of 31 baby snakes (and a slug, which is an unfertilized egg.. it's the yellowish glob next to the mom's tail). Two of the babies ended up dying after about a day (my guess is that they were underdeveloped or weren't able to get enough oxygen through all of that snake goo), but the other 29 survived, and guess whose job it was to take care of them all summer?
Yeah. That'd be me. I had to teach those things how to eat. Do you know how freaking hard that is?! Especially when there are that many of them?! I spent countless hours sweating my butt off in that 80 degree reptile room. Every single day I had to do a count to make sure they were all alive, and that was incredibly difficult because the little jerks kept escaping on me. Then I spent a good hour everyday (unless I could find some poor, unsuspecting child to do it for me) changing their paper towels and waters (because every single one had its own box to keep track of feedings).
And then. Twice a week, I spent my entire evening dangling dead baby rats in front of their stupid, little faces, trying to encourage them to eat. Some of them didn't want to eat. And I did not like those. Not one bit. So I tried everything.. from rubbing the rats in gerbil litter to poking holes in their brains. Eventually, all of the snakes started to figure out how to eat, and that was one of the happiest days of my life.
I can't even tell you how many baby snake bites I endured that summer (some of them were strikers.. big time.. luckily they were so tiny that it didn't really hurt). But I wouldn't trade it for anything, and I even kinda miss those little guys. I almost wish I could have kept one, but they get like, 8 feet long, and I don't want to be eaten by my own pet.
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| This is about 6 months after they were born. Little dudes grow up so fast. |
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