Vet Science Photo Gallery and STEM Projects
2021 Vet Science Camp et MSU Tollgate Farm
Day 1 – Animal Well-Being and the Tollgate Livestock
It’s a vet science kind of week at Tollgate Farm. Campers ages 12-14 banded together to explore the worlds of veterinary and animal medicine. Stewards ages 15-19 serve as mentors to help campers investigate principles, tools, and technologies of animal and vet science. We began with the traditional Tollgate Farm Camp flag ceremony and moved on to our stewards presenting our CARES skits. Lots of interactive STEAM learning fills each day of camp as we enjoy learning alongside a variety farm staff, visiting vets, and animal care specialists.
To kick-off the week, each camper group began to get to know our livestock by doing animal chores. The ‘Microscopes’ cared for our poultry as they learned basic anatomy and egg-laying habits of our many breeds of hens and the heritage breed ducks, the Silver Appleyards. The ‘Paw Prints’ met our Toggenburg dairy goats and tried their hand at milking.
It wasn’t long before MSU Extension Educator Melissa Elischer joined us to share ideas about animal well-being, the five freedoms, animals senses and behavior. Also visiting were two MSU grad students and interns from Chubb E Acres Farm where Hannah and Sydney serve respectively as farm manager and clinic worker for owner Dr. Melissa Holahan. Campers were faced with a case study about a dairy cow who was ill and together with Hannah and Sydney they brainstormed how to diagnose what turned out to be a bad case of mastitis.
Day 2 – Horsin’ Around at Tollgate Farm
Tuesday was Horse Day at Vet Science Camp, filled with lots of interaction with Tollgate’s horses – Grizz, Sesame, Friday, and Sedona as well as Ms. Deb’s horse Tulsa. After grooming the horses, Dr. Hillary Lobar visited to explore horse anatomy, flexion, the use of x-rays, and much more. Campers carried out ‘flexion’ on Grizz’ leg joints to see if he needs additional care for a sore hoof by first flexing the joint and then having him sprint on it while we observed for abnormalities in gait.
Dr. Lobar was encouraged by Grizz’ response but she assessed that X-rays were in order to learn more about how his leg is doing. She found that Grizz has an anomaly in his front left foot. The farrier will be asked to provide special attention to that hoof so that it can heal.
Dr. Holahan then joined us to share about her university and career path as an ICU small animal veterinarian and farm owner. Following our visit with the doc, campers met Koren who trimmed Tulsa’s hooves and told about her career as a farrier.
Over our first couple of days, campers had time for some fun and games with Where’s My Chicken, Bull’s Eye Ring, and a game about the immune system called Ready, Set, Defense.
To wrap up day 2 of Vet Science Camp, campers and Sam Stokes, Tollgate’s livestock coordinator, learned how to treat an abscess on a horse’s hoof by securing a medicated bandage.
One of the favorite activities of the day, campers painted two body systems on Tulsa. The Microscopes painted the skeletal system on one side, and the Paw Prints painted the digestive system on the other side. Each group then presented their work to the other group. Check out their work below!
Day 3 Meet the Ruminants
Today, campers explored the ruminants including our cattle and sheep, but first we began the day with a STEM design and build activity where campers designed a pathogen from their imagination. Afterwards, they learned about a range of problematic microbes including viruses, bacteria, and parasites.
Next, we had a special opportunity to meet with the Kellogg Biological Station and Bird Sanctuary as Brandon and Ashlyn, two grad students who are studying to be wildlife biologists, shared about another possible animal career. They introduced us to Toby, the Red-Tailed Hawk, as they shared about their career and school path.
We met the Tollgate cattle Helios and Chance to learn lots of background and terminology about cattle as we offered them a snack of apples. With us was Nick Babcock, Livestock Instructor for MSU Extension, who described his work with livestock education across the state as well as on his own farm where he raises sheep and cattle.
Chance and Helios showed lots of interest in us as Nick described how Jersey Cattle are desirable to have on the farm. Next, the group headed out past the education garden to meet our sheep, both the Suffolk and Dorper hair sheep. We learned about the use of the Famacha card to determine parasite pressure in our sheep and goats. Popping the eyelid outwards, campers compared the shade of color of the membranes with those on the eyelid to determine if the sheep needed worming. It was determined one of the sheep needed deworming and we helped come up with that diagnosis. Campers also helped get fecal samples so that we could do fecal floats to determine which type of parasite was present.
Campers played a game called That’s My Apple to explore the importance of being able to identify our animals so that we can track their health or illness, record their care, determine if they will reproduce, and much more. Campers first chose an apple, observed it carefully, drew a picture of it, and wrote a description. The apples were then set in 2 long straight lines and campers tried to identify their apple based on their notes. They passed their notes to the left and each camper read the notes and attempted to find their neighbor’s apple based on the description. Later in the week, we’ll do livestock tagging to help identify our animals.
A large part of this career and workforce prep experience is the visits from vets, and we had the pleasure of having Dr. Nick of Parkway Veterinary Clinic join us. Nick shared all about his small animal practice which he shared with 3 other doctors. His stories of his schooling and experience as a veterinary doctor kept campers engaged and full of questions.
Nick Babcock explored ruminants such as our cows, sheep, and goats and compared the pseudo-ruminant digestive system of a horse with the ruminant digestive system. Campers got to get their hands dirty by working in small groups to identify the four compartments of a ruminant’s digestive system in a simulation called ‘ruminant buckets’.
Dissections cut into our week several times with a cow eye dissection, rooster necropsy, fetal pig dissection, and egg dissection. Campers were able to opt in or out of the experience, but the majority learned lots of dissection skills and all explored the anatomy of mammals and birds by close observation of animal body systems.
On Thursday, campers observed as Nick Babcock performed sheep hoof trimming and demonstrated flight zone. Campers took our dairy does and yearlings on a halter hike where they saw firsthand how goats are browsers versus grazers. See how the goats love to browse the growth on our apple and walnut trees at head height. The concept of the advantages of rotational grazing was investigated as campers reviewed our pastures and fields and created a rotational grazing plan with a diagram of our fields and toy animals.
Enjoying a break from the sun and heat, the ‘microscopes’ and ‘paw prints’ stopped to make two special treat for the chickens, including a veggie kabob and some frozen seed/mealworm treats. The chickens were eager to snack on these delicacies.
An interesting exercise during vet science camp was learning about livestock injections. Campers used hypodermic needles and syringes with food coloring to learn how to give intramuscular (IM) and subcutaneous injections. Colorful and fun, it was interesting to experiment with the different angles these types of injections require.
Camp drew to a close but not before we stopped to reflect on a K, W, L boards. Campers had recorded on the first day what they already knew about vet science and what they wanted to know. On Day 5, we stopped to reflect on what they had learned and the board soon filled with the knowledge gained and new questions developed! To finish off our week, campers got into small groups and designed skits about some driving principle of vet science that they’d learned during the week. Some serious and some silly, we all enjoyed the fun and creativity as we realized how much campers had mastered during our vet science adventures together!