The rumenotomy sheep

Andrew Knight, Veterinary Student

Species: Sheep

Procedure: Surgery
Institution: Murdoch University Division of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Year: 2000

2000 was the surgical year of my veterinary course. With the greatest of reluctance, and only after being forced by a university resolution allowing student conscientious objection, my surgery and anesthesia academics had finally agreed to allow a classmate and I to learn surgery without killing animals in the traditional terminal (lethal) surgery labs. As at most the vet schools worldwide, Murdoch University vet students practice surgical techniques on healthy animals before killing them prior to recovery. However, nearly two thirds of the 31 North American vet schools were offering humane alternatives for students who requested them, and all six UK vet schools had eliminated terminal surgical labs in favor of humane alternatives decades ago. But at Murdoch groups of students still killed large numbers of young pigs and sheep in an annual ritual of death via surgery lab.

Instead of participating in these labs we were required attend them as observers and to arrange our own surgical and anesthetic experience in private veterinary practices or animal shelters. Those paid to teach us did not offer to do so in a humane manner. But they would nevertheless assess us. We had to source our own dogs and cats and sterilize them at Murdoch to demonstrate that we could perform surgery and anesthesia to Murdoch’s high standards. Despite strong opposition, we succeeded spectacularly, jointly sterilizing 45 dogs and cats in animal shelters and private clinics, and participating in a range of other surgeries as well. Overall we gained five times the surgical and anesthetic experience of our classmates, who were lucky if they had performed a single spay (female sterilization), the most important operation for new graduates.

One last requirement remained, however. We were required to perform a rumenotomy (incision into the stomach of a sheep, eg, to take diagnostic samples from within). Our classmates all participated in the standard terminal surgery lab, conducted, in this case, under local anesthesia. Prof. John Bolton was unsympathetic towards my desire to learn without harming animals. He required me to locate a similar surgical case in private practice and to participate in this surgery. This was an extremely difficult task, as he well knew. Rumenotomies are not common surgeries, and large animal vets and farmers are not likely to be sympathetic towards students unwilling to participate in terminal surgeries for ethical reasons. Additionally, the audiences of farmers, their families and staff that commonly watch such procedures were unlikely to encourage a large animal vet to allow an inexperienced student to operate on their client’s animal. However, to even get Prof. Bolton to compromise that far had been like squeezing blood from a stone, and so I agreed. The alternative seemed like failure from the veterinary course, and many future animal protection campaigns and animal lives were depending on me.

Unexpectedly, my chance arrived one day, as I was gaining practical experience in a private vet clinic. A client brought in a sheep with a terrible peri-anal tumor for euthanasia, and the veterinarian, who was sympathetic towards my desire to learn without killing, offered me the sheep. I hadn’t had any warning this would happen and hadn’t had the chance to review the surgery, but knew I was unlikely to get another chance, so I accepted.

We tied the sheep to the bars of a cage in a standing position, and then the veterinarian, who seemed to think it would rattle my nerves if he watched me, left and went into his office, leaving me alone without guidance. I hadn’t done any similar surgeries before and was very scared, mostly of hurting the sheep. I injected large quantities of local anesthesia in an ‘L’ shape to block the nerves running from the spinal cord down the flank (a standard rumenotomy protocol), and began the incision. However, I was so unfamiliar with the texture of the tissues and the surgery that it took me ages and ages. I anxiously watched the sheep as time wore on. Feeling sure the anesthetic must have worn off, I injected more. The sheep appeared to be grinding it’s teeth a bit – a sure sign of pain, in a prey species that shows few other signs – or was it merely chewing its cud? I couldn’t tell … as time wore on, the blood from my long incision congealed down the side of the sheep and all over the floor, which became slick. There was a lot of blood, and the sheep sagged lower and lower from its rope.

Meanwhile, I was very deep in my own private hell. By now I was sure I must have been causing major suffering – the last thing I wanted to do – and my shirt was soaked to my back with sweat from stress. But I knew Prof Bolton would fail me out of vet school if I didn’t complete this surgery, and then I wouldn’t be able to save far larger numbers of animals later on.

Finally I made it through the various muscle layers to the rumen (stomach), and made my ruminal incision. By this time the sheep was in a bad way, held up only by its head, which remained tied to the bars. Taking mercy on us both, the veterinarian euthanased the sheep, and I finished my surgical closure post-mortem, as awkwardly as my surgical incisions.

Upon receiving my report, signed off by my supervising veterinarian, and despite the fact that as a small animal veterinarian I would never perform this surgery after graduation, Prof. Bolton changed his mind, and inexplicably decided I would have to do a rumenotomy at Murdoch after all.

Another sheep with cancer had been located on the Murdoch farm, and was scheduled for euthanasia. This time, however, I insisted on general anesthesia, and am sure that that sheep felt nothing from the induction of anesthesia to the time of its euthanasia.

Conversations with other students confirmed that the terminal rumenotomies they performed similarly took 2-3 hours. Research within my anesthesia text confirmed that local anesthesia lasts for 20-50 minutes, and that extra doses are contraindicated in sheep due to toxicity concerns. I submitted a report to the faculty recommending that all future student rumenotomies be performed under general anesthesia, but never received a response. Almost certainly, they are still being performed under grossly inadequate local anesthesia at Murdoch, and numerous other veterinary schools worldwide.

Thanks to the struggles of past students it is now possible for students at Murdoch to complete their veterinary degrees with minimal harm to animals, however, the atmosphere towards humane alternatives remains hostile. Prof. John Bolton is now Dean of Murdoch’s veterinary school, but, like many of the older generation of veterinary academics, his days are numbered, and the ranks of those of us insisting on an ethical and humane veterinary education are slowly but inevitably growing.

I will never forget the sheep I put through that experience to satisfy Prof. Bolton’s requirements, nor the suffering it endured. In part, I owe my veterinary degree to that sheep, and a serious obligation to use it to minimize the suffering of other animals.