Treating hippos

This hippopotamus was attacked by another hippo and had to be captured so its wounds could heal properly. We had to dart it with a tranquilizer so that we could treat it. I was washing out the wounds and I had to put an antibiotic ointment on it.

Riding elephants

We went to a place called Elephant Whisper's where they trained orphaned elephants. We were able to ride and feed the elephants. The elephants showed us tricks such as opening their mouths (the bottom picture) and laying down.

Fostering a baby rhino

At Wildlife Vets, they fostered a baby rhino because his mother was killed from poaching. His name is Valentino. They had to bottle feed him with a milk replacer every three hours.

Dehorning Rhinos

We helped dehorn rhinoceros at a Rhinoceros farm. In South Africa, rhino owners dehorn them to prevent poaching because the material in the rhino horns are worth alot of money there. Each of us vet students had a job. For this specific rhino I was holding the IV fluid bag while they would dehorn the rhino. All of the rhino's were darted with an anesthetic and tranquelizer prior to this.

Treating Zebras

After being moved to a different area, a couple of the zebras had capture myopathy because of the stress of the move. We had to come treat them by placing a IV catheter in them to give them fluids and gave them antibiotics like penicillin after they were darted with an anesthetic and tranquilizer.

Working with Crocodiles

On the first day in South Africa we helped the vets tranquilize the crocodiles. We then blindfolded them, measured the length of them, got blood samples to measure their glucose levels and weighed them.