Note: This post is one day old. We've had no internet for the last 4 days and I'm currently stealing our neighbors. Be back as soon as possible...WITH PICTURES.
We hath been stricken.
Yesterday, I was inside in the A/C for the entire day. I only ate a tiny cup of icecream, some rice, bread and Gatorade. Nearly passed out on my way back from lunch. The most I was able to do was pop in my $1.30 bootleg copy of Big Fish that I got from the local mall and stare at my laptop. Nearly everyone in the house suffered from some sort of sickness. I’ll spare you the gory details, but let me assure you it wasn’t pretty. I think this trip is hazing me. I can now be admitted into the traveler’s club.
Being vet students, everyone tried to figure out just what may have caused the synchronized sickness. We all drink the same bottled water, eat the same food and do the same activities. The food is catered from a nearby company that Dr. Mohankumar trusts, so it may have just been an unlucky twist of fate where people were exposed to something in the environment. The locals often eat with their hands or use bread etc. to scoop up their rice and lentils. At a few dinners, no forks were provided and we all ate this way as well. Besides employing tons of hand sanitizer and being vigilant about washing your hands, you are sure to eat some bad bacteria at some point if you’re eating like that. Or even if not…it’s a brand new country with brand new flora. Dr. Mohankumar thinks that we may have all gotten heat stroke from spending too much time outside. I’m gonna hope it’s just that.
Anyway, this morning I feel much better and can finally sit up long enough to type up what has happened.
We have finally ironed out the three projects that we will be working on with Madras Veterinary School. Everyone split up into pairs and drew their project from a hat. One group will be testing the efficacy of a mineral and nitrogen supplement aimed at increasing the efficiency of rumen microbes in dairy cattle. The rumen is the 1st of the 4 stomachs and does the work of fermenting the grass/hay with the help of good bacteria. If you meet the needs of the microflora, you improve their ability to ferment stuff and make use of coarse plant matter and less digestible feedstuffs. In the US, cows are fed a mixture of super digestible hay and a lot of concentrates such as corn silage, barley, etc. Here, cows are primarily grazed on whatever land the owner has and are fed a special ingredient called gruel. Gruel is basically just the water that the rice (eaten by the family) is boiled in and whatever other table scraps the family has left over from dinner. The rice leaves behind a starchy residue in the water which serves as an energy source for the cows. This gruel is mixed into whatever other stuff the cows are fed (usually rice bran) and attempts to provide the proper nutrients. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do the best job and the cows are undernourished. This leads to lowered milk production, with cows producing anywhere from 1-9 liters a day (18lbs max without supplementing concentrates like corn). In the US, cows can produce upwards of 80lbs.
So…adding a mineral and nitrogen supplement that helps out the flora effectively helps out the cow and leads to increased milk production. Our job is to find out just how much it improves it and if it’s worthwhile to the farmer.
The other two projects focus on diseases. The first is BVDV, or bovine viral diarrhea virus. It’s not zoonotic (people can’t get it) but it causes big economic losses in the cattle industry in the US by immunocompromising cattle, causing abortions and infertility. It isn’t really known if BVDV is rampant in India, but we have a feeling it might be. Unfortunately, the Indian government isn’t keen on admitting that there is another virus wreaking havoc on their populations, so they have sort of denied its existence. The philosophy that many Indian vets believe in is that if you eradicate one disease, another one will come in to take its place. It’s all about competition between bacteria and viruses which all keep each other in check. The Indians aren’t big on eradication of diseases…they just control them. Part of the reason for that is because they have little interest in animal trade with other countries. They are more focused on just providing for their ever growing population. Therefore, it’s not as important to be able to declare yourself disease free, which is why there hasn’t been any real attempt to eradicate Foot and Mouth Disease (the big bad wolf of viruses in 1st world countries).
The BVDV project is the one I’ve been assigned to. We’re basically just trying to get an idea of how prevalent it is in the population, since not much other work has been done on it. The second disease project is on Brucellosis, which is caused by B. abortus, a particularly nasty bacteria which targets the reproductive system. This is carried by a variety of species and is spread through most bodily fluids including milk. Pasteurizing kills the organism, but if people drink milk raw, they may be exposed to Brucella and can contract the disease (which in people is known as undulant fever). Males who are exposed may develop orchitis, or inflammation of the testicles. Still think you wanna go hippy and drink raw??
In the US, Brucella has been nearly eradicated and is only really found in places where wild buffalo can introduce it to cattle herds which are nearby. It is screened for frequently and animals are vaccinated against it. If animals do contract it, they end up with reproductive problems such as infertility and may abort. It is a costly public health concern.
In India, the prevalence of Brucella is much greater. Most herds do not vaccinate, and many more humans are exposed through the drinking of raw milk and being in close contact with their animals during calving. Many people even keep their animals in their house. Our job is to figure out just how high the prevalence is, and to try and correlate it to certain breeds or locations. To do so, we are going to be collecting blood and milk samples from animals in a variety of situations and using the samples to test for both Brucella and BVDV. Samples will come from organized and unorganized farms, the veterinary clinic at Madras Veterinary Hospital and a giant cattle shelter in the center of Chennai known as Pinjrapole.
Yes, cattle shelter.
You've gotta click on this picture to see just how many cows there are...
When the city started to urbanize, and people weren’t allowed to keep cattle within city limits anymore, they were forced to either move or release the cattle out onto the streets. Many chose the latter. Pinjrapole takes in all of these cattle, and as such has a population of about 3,000. Imagine driving through a city, passing fruit markets and clothing stores, and suddenly stumbling upon a little side drive with an arch over it reading, “Pinjrapole Cattle Sanctuary.” It seems to be nothing special, but behind a set of iron gates lies a huge stretch of land with an assortment of cattle and buffalo, both male and female, just wandering around right in the center of Chennai. You’d think they’d all be skinny and fighting over resources, but they were some of the best looking cattle I’ve seen yet. Turns out, Pinjrapole is funded by private charitable donations and is run by a religious group called the Janeists which believe that all life is sacred (including insects). Therefore, the cattle have access to plenty of food and water, big buildings for shelter, and grazing land. There is even a small veterinary hospital and a milking barn where recently calved females are milked by hand and the milk sold.
Three legged mom and her calf
One of the most noticeable differences between Pinjrapole and a big organized dairy is that there is no limit to which animals are accepted. There are bulls EVERYWHERE. In the US, most cattle are bred by artificial insemination and only a few farms actually keep bulls due to the danger they pose when handling them. In India, a lot of breeding is done the same way…but not here. While we walked amongst the freely ranging cattle, I was able to spot at least 50 bulls that had no problem getting within 5 feet of us. When you’re used to avoiding bulls in the US, or at least being cautious around them, it’s nerve wracking to turn your back on a 1,800lb intact male just wandering around. Luckily, most of the bulls have learned to live in harmony and only a few fights broke out while I was there. A few times, a bull would come charging out of nowhere to mount a female standing nearby, but otherwise they were relatively quiet. There was even a bull barn where about 20 bulls were kept in tie stalls, lying right next to each other.
You mess with the bull...you WILL get the horns
It was quite the experience. I’ve never been amongst so many cattle in my life, except in big US dairies where they are all set up in individual pens or tie stalls. The cattle here would just follow you around as you walked through Pinjrapole like a pack of dogs, looking for hand outs. Many of them were very sweet and would come over to be scratched. Calves hung out in little calf parties and mooed at you as you passed. Surprisingly, they were all horned…with big, pointy horns. In the US, all dairy animals are dehorned shortly after birth. There were even water buffalo, standing off in their own little cliques and staring at you as you walked by. Buffalo always look pissed. They stop whatever they’re doing and just STARE, daring you to take one step closer. They make strange honking noises and like standing in the mud. They’re very bulky compared to cattle and have skin that looks like hippo skin; rubbery and hairless. And they’ve got ‘tude.
Taking blood samples at Pinjrapole turned out to be quite the challenge. It was easy to get milk samples; we simply went to one of the cow barns where the recently calved females are kept and gave tubes to the milkers who squirted some in and handed it back. All of the cows are milked by hand, and unlike the US, the cows are allowed to keep their calves with them when they are very young. When the calves are older, they’re booted out of the barn to socialize outside, but are still let in to drink from mom before every milking. I thought that that was one of the coolest parts of the whole process. As soon as the milkers showed up, a group of calves would assemble outside the barn door and stare in. The workers know exactly which calves belong to which cows, even without the use of neck chains or ear tags or numbers. They would go over to the door and let in the calf that belonged to the cow they were just about to milk. The calf would come shrieking down the aisle, find its mom in an instant, and start drinking as fast as it could before the workers shooed them off. These workers are tough guys. They work the grounds in nothing but bare feet, what looks like a sheet wrapped around their nether regions and a tshirt. They’re all small, skinny men with rough looking skin that don’t take shit from the cattle. These guys probably weigh 100lbs (their lower legs are like sticks) and yet the cows do whatever they want. They just sharply shout out “hey!” and whack them on the back with pieces of palm stalks which obviously can’t hurt much, and the big animals lumber away. They brave the horns, getting body checked, run into and stepped on. And they know all the cattle well.
Calf cohort
So, it was pretty necessary to have them around at all times for protection, and to help us attempt to collect blood. Unfortunately, even though most of the cattle are docile when free or when being milked, they do not tolerate being restrained. When we attempted to get blood from the girls in the milking barn, Dr. Grooms almost lost an eye. Without a chute, it was just asking for somebody to get impaled or knocked over. Even with the cattle handlers’ help, it was a task that nobody wanted to do. So, we settled on milk samples only.
Note buffalo staring
Getting samples at the vet clinic was a lot easier. All of the cattle there were brought in for some other reason, and so were kept in chutes and were generally easier to deal with. We all took turns drawing blood and collecting milk, and obtained histories from the owners about their cattle with the help of a translator. English is the second language for most Indians, but there are still many people who do not speak well enough to converse. While at the large animal clinic, we saw a variety of things that we will probably never see in the US. There was a steer who was clipped by a shareauto (a large auto rickshaw) and needed his lip stitched up, a jaundiced cow with anaplasmosis (tick disease that causes anemia), a cow that aborted from Brucella, etc. And tons of GOATS. When there was downtime from the cows, I made my way over to the small ruminant ward and did a few physical exams on the goats that were brought in. I was even allowed to take blood from a grumpy buffalo. Check that off the bucket list.
Dr. Grooms demonstrating proper blood drawing technique
This dude made my day...THE EARSSSS
Once we have collected samples, we are also in charge of running a battery of tests on them (for you science people: Brucella ring test, Rose Bengal test, tube agglutination, PCR, IDEXX SNAP for BVDV). There is an older lab up on the 2nd floor of the vet school with separate rooms for virology, bacteriology, etc. Each room has a big hood for working under and all are air conditioned (woo hoo!). As I expected, there wasn’t much use of aseptic technique…no gloves were worn and many instruments were washed simply with soap and water. For the tests that we’re running this isn’t much of a problem, but it still gives me the heebie jeebies to be handling milk that is probably infected with Brucella without gloves. Many of the cows did end up being positive for it.
And that pretty much sums up the type of work that we will be doing during the weekdays here in Chennai. We have a few trips planned to visit farms in far away areas, but otherwise most of the work will take place here.
Besides seeing lots and lots of cows, we were treated to a huge thunderstorm a few nights ago. It’s summer here in India, but it doesn’t rain nearly as much as it does in lovely Michigan. When it does rain, it’s more of a monsoon than a storm. Usually I can tell from the changing humidity and the wind that a storm is coming, but when the humidity is always high and there isn’t much wind, it sneaks up on you. After the rain started, within five minutes the puddles on the ground were more than ankle deep. The thunder was LOUD, and lightning flashed every minute. I felt bad for the many commuters on motor bikes. The rain water was as warm as a bath so it wasn’t at all unpleasant. And the storm cooled the temperature a little bit, which we were all grateful for.
Other things…
Over the course of our time here we’ve gotten very familiar with a certain street dog which we’ve named Zeus. Zeus is fit, charming, friendly…and a little racist. He only likes white people. I’m guessing at some point he was whacked or yelled at by the Indians around him, because he always follows our group around and barks at anyone who comes near. He even barked at Mutu, our caretaker, who is very gentle and never yells. Zeus lives under a truck at the corner of a street near our house, and always pops out when we walk by. At first, he followed us only about 100 feet. Now, he follows us into the vet school, and actually ran around the track with us when we went for some exercise. He even followed us home, much to our caretakers’ dismay. Sorry…we’re vet students…couldn’t help it. We attempted to feed him some granola bar, but he turned his nose up at it. Must be more of a rice and dosa kind of dog.
Zeus
Not all the street dogs are quite so friendly. While walking with Chrissy one day, we were approached by a tan and white dog who came over and followed us for a bit. When she put her hand out for him to smell, he jumped up and tried to bite her. Lesson learned. Not all street dogs are as cool as Zeus.
We also learned recently that the word “chai” actually means tea. So when your Starbucks barista asks you if you want chai tea, they’re really asking you if you want tea tea. Dr. Mohankumar tries to correct people at home, but I doubt many people will catch on.
Speaking of America…I could really go for some pizza. I read back to a few posts ago and laughed at myself. I’m not sick of the food, but I could really use some cheese, and pasta sauce, and hamburger…Dunkin Donuts…the gym… I’ve had enough bread and rice for a lifetime. In general, I definitely have a new appreciation for America. Everything in comparison is so clean, quiet, organized and efficient. But there are also a lot of things I love about India. The freedom to walk around without a cellphone and without a strict time schedule is great. The friendliness of the people, the animals, the flowers and scenery can’t be beat. They’re just so different.
Our caterers have started to incorporate mangos into our meals. Apparently there are over 50 varieties of mangos. I’m used to the one kind they sell at Meijer (which I don’t know the name of). It’s the orange one.
The last thing that I’ll comment on before I upload this giant entry is the wall paintings on the streets. A lot of the streets are lined by stone walls which separate the housing areas from the main road. The walls are painted with pictures of gods, animals, people spearing buffalo…random stuff. But this one wins the cake. It is the most ridiculous painting ever.
Pegasus vs. Unicorn...wtf?
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