Lab Fun

Yesterday I went to the poultry farm for my second round. The first time we went, I was freaking out so badly because I've never had experience with chickens, and quite frankly they just scare me. Last time, we had to catch chickens in cages and in pens while they were running around everywhere and weigh them. This week someone started a rumor that Chet beheaded the chickens at the second poultry lab. Needless to say, I was super scared to go to the second lab. After going through it though, I thought it was a really cool lab! I definitely learned a lot and saw some really cool stuff. We learned how to vaccinate with the wing web stab technique and how to blood test them. I tend to get kind of panicky when I do stuff like that, and I'm not sure why. I've passed out 3 times before so I just kind of panic that it'll happen again and then I freak myself out worse than I already am. But we were incident free, and now I'm confident that I can do it again no problem, without freaking myself out. At the end we got to dissect them, which was also really neat. Some chickens had reproductive problems and had eggs stuck inside them actually rotting! One also was so covered with cancer, there wasn't a tissue that didn't have tumors on it. And we got to see a lot of ovarian cysts, which are directly relatable to human health because it looks the exact same and research done with chicken ovarian cysts has changed the way we treat humans with them. This lab I was so determined to prove myself because everyone thinks that (even though it's not true) anyone who feels woozy when doing this stuff is unfit to work with animals. But I succeeded! And I have some cool stories to tell!