Ghana - Genesis Pig Farm

On Thursday the 18th July we headed of on another outreach; this time to Genesis pig farm. We were there to perform castrations on a number of piglets as well as giving the smallest, youngest piglets iodine shots. They were indoor pigs so they needed to be given iodine shots as they wouldn't get enough in their food.

This was the first time that I had worked with pigs and I didn't realised how noisy they are. Every time you grabbed one they would scream and whine and wiggle, which made giving them injections particularly difficult. It was lucky that they were only small piglets as restraining any large piglets would have been more of a challenge and the noise would have been a lot greater! To try and combat the noise the men that worked on the farm would hold the mouth of the pigs closed.

After giving the piglets the iodine shots, we moved on the castrating the bigger piglets. I was surprised to find out that we were all allowed to have a go at castrating a pig. A number of us were still at school and not qualified vet students. I was last up so I was able to see a lot of other people go first. I had seen the others get covered in blood and had the pig kick and scream throughout the procedure.

When it came to my turn it seemed as if they had saved the largest piglets for last and the ones with the largest pair of testicles. Before my castration I went over and over and over the steps of castrations in my head. The way that they performed the castrations in Ghana were a lot different than the many I have seen in England. To start with, only a local aesthetic was used, and no suture material was used. The wound was left open, exposed to the elements. To cut off the blood supply to the testicles we used the epididymis/sperm cord to tie around the vessel rather than any suture material. Another major difference was how sterilised the procedure was - or should I say unsterilized. The same needle and scalpel blade was used for all of the pigs and changed because it was blunt rather than to stop disease spreading. Also, the equipment was put on the farm wall rather than on a sterile tray, which meant that the chance of infection was a lot higher. It seemed to be a miracle that the animals hadn't all died of infection yet.

I managed to perform my first castration with relatively few problems. I had had difficulty holding the testicle firm so that I could inject it with lidocaine, but thankfully this pig had been one of the quieter ones. I then had to shave the area using the scalpel blade, which was quite a challenge. In England the vet would have used a razor. The incision was next, where again I struggled to hold the testicles in place. I was not used to force needed to cut through the skin of the pig. I managed to squeeze the testicle out of the layer, whilst also getting blood all over myself. Finding the epididymis also proved to be a little tricky as I had no idea what it looked like. Thankfully, with the guidance of the over vet students and volunteers I was able to locate it.  Clamping the blood vessel was the easy bit and tying off the blood supply was not too bad. Back in England we would have used sutures to tie off the vessel, but this was Ghana and they do it differently.

As this was my first time performing a castration and I had no idea how tight to pull the epididymis around the vessel, I accidently pulled it too hard and it split. Thankfully this gave the vet a chance to show us another way of tying off the vessel. He looped the testicle around itself so that it knotted. you could then cut the testicle off. The second testicle came out a lot easier as I was not as new to the procedure.

The wound is not sutured up so after I had finished I sprayed antibacterial spray on it. The pig was also given antibiotics and vitamins through intramuscular injections in their neck, and then the pig was released.

The second pig that I castrated was a lot more lively than the first. The vein connecting the testicles to the body was as thick as my finger. Fortunately there were no more disasters and, although the pig wiggled and kicked out lots, the procedure was relatively simple.

The day was very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed the operation and the chance to actually perform it. It had been a long tiring day but it had been worth it!!