Being a part of a necropsy is still not an easy part. Even though I have gone through some before, I still feel uneasy about having to put an animal down, specially after caring for it from birth until this time. To any reading this, keep in mind that even though these animals are put down, it is in the most humane way possible (euthanasia by a licensed veterinarian).
Upon opening the animal I began to recall all of the information I had learned from anatomy and my nutrition courses. From previous high school biology laboratories, and past research I knew what cats, frogs, and pigs were like. However, I had only learned from books the characteristics of the 4 part stomach of cattle, it was not until now that I was able to apply the information I knew well.
Although, we did not cover in extensive detail the lymph system in cattle I was able to know the general area where each lymph node should be based on the human model we learned. The lymph nodes seemed much more difficult for me to find on my own, but they are similar to small round balls found on the connective tissue areas that surround the organs. Pieces of each lymph tissue of each organ in the digestive system were taken, swabbed, and smaller samples frozen with liquid nitrogen. This was done for all of the calves at day 21.
These samples along with the blood sample I took before will all be analyzed on a later date.
