Saturday 6th June. Bigger team, new location.

We had a slower day today with less animals seen as we were in a new location ( we used last visit also) at the Betio Town Council. There is less surrounding housing and it was a Saturday, but we still had patients show up. I finally broke the barrier of a pig castration today using Paige's nifty "Piggy Magic" sedation/anaesthetic mix (xylazine, butorphanol, ketamine and local infiltration at the surgical site with lignocaine). We are seeing a great demand for pig castrations and most people are bringing in small pigs (5-8kg) but they are very noisy all the same! We were joined by a few other people from the ship including a nurse, 2 dentists and a medic who enjoyed observing us wrangling our patients (like they are not allowed to do but wish they could do!). So it was fairly busy with people watching in a small space.

Small room at the BTC in which we were able to set up our clinic.

We would love to see a dog registration programme implemented
so were quite excited to see a dog with a tag!! There have
been "plans" to get it going, so maybe it has started.

Dog & pig recovery outside was also supervised.

Severe fly bites on the dorsum of the ear pinnae.

Tick infestation on the ear pinnae and  in patches
all over the body

 We have seen various ailments I mentioned previously. We saw 2 spectacular cases today of tick infestation in one 18 month old dog (which incidentally was Lyme disease, Ehrlichia canis, Dirofilaria immitis and Anaplasma negative on SNAP test), and one dog with severe fly bitten ears.

Lisa's favourite patient of the day.

We finished early enough to go home, shower and head back down to Betio to the monthly fishing competition weigh in. A big event in mostly "I-matang" (foreigner) circles. George's boat (the Australian High Commissioner) got lots of small yellow-fin tuna (14-16 pounds). We saw a few massive trevally and barracuda (40+ pounds), and a huge sailfish which for it's species was considered small.

Weigh in!

George and his boat's catch.

I forget who won...but it was a good place to chat to other people and to hear about what work they were doing on Tarawa!