UWEC Day 3

Patas monkey health check

I was barely holding him....

Back to William, the Patas monkey. He was rescued as a baby by a couple that lives in northern Uganda. They brought him all the way down to UWEC because they did not know where else to take him. He had to be hand raised by Barbara, the animal health technician. He did not know how to climb, forage, or socialize with other monkeys. Unfortunate, as part of his hand raising, he became very habituated to humans. The plan was to introduce to the Patas colony at UWEC, as there were no males in that colony. He was only 4-5 months old and would need a lot of training and proper socialization before he could be introduced. On top of him being quarantined at the hospital (to make sure he did not bring any disease into the colony) he would probably have to stay there for almost a year.

Drawing blood

Checking his reflexes

Today he needed his health check completed. So Barbara brought him into the treatment room and gave him to me to hold for a bit. His rescuers were Caucasian, so he stuck to me like glue as well (proof he was imprinted). In order to perform his health check, he needed to be anesthetized under a general anesthetic. This would help to greatly reduce his stress levels for working on him. After he went unconscious, we connected all the monitoring equipment to observe his vital signs. At this point we could take a good look at his body condition and also look for any external parasites (like fleas or ticks). I was able to draw blood from him. Interestingly, I learned that with primates, a very common site for drawing blood is on the inside of the leg. Because he was so small, we didn’t need that much for the lab work. I also gave his deworming injection as well. Once we were finished we turned off the gas to recover him. I was left to watch him wake up and after about 5 minutes of waiting and checking his reflexes; he suddenly opened his eyes, sat up and jumped on to me for comfort! He was a cute little guy for sure

Accompanying lab work:

Strongyle (roundworm) egg

Once we got the blood and fecal samples we needed, Barbara and I headed to the lab to run some tests. Without many fancy instruments that we are so used to in North America, I am very glad we were taught in school this past year how to run these tests manually. We got a crude estimate of a complete red blood cell count and white blood cell count. We examined the feces for presence of parasites. The first test we ran came up negative, but a second more specific test performed on the feces came positive for a few parasite eggs (we think they were typical Strongyle (nematode roundworm) eggs – see photo) Any major assays that need to be performed on samples collected at UWEC are sent out to a private lab, specifically one that can handle animal samples. As one of the major problems are that most labs only correct values for humans, and would produce erroneous results if they were used for animals.

African Donkey hoof trimming and deworming

In the afternoon, the African donkeys needed some hoof trimming. I soon realized how much this had to be a team effort. One of the donkeys was really old (over 30) and much care needed to be used when restraining him. Someone was always at the head and another had a restraint around the abdomen. Mr. Takahashi, a zookeeper from Japan, was the experienced hoof trimmer. He was sent over to UWEC to help train Charles, the baby elephant, because UWEC has never had one before. He has also been trimming hoofstock for over 15 years. After each donkey was trimmed, I gave a shot of dewormer to them and their legs were sprayed with iodine to help with the fly strike. Because we weren’t using chemical restraint, this procedure took some time. Patience to reduce stress was of the utmost importance. 

The experienced, Mr. Takahashi!

Barbara, taking a turn