Guts!

I had a few comments about my last anatomy post and how yucky the pictures were so I'm warning you right now... Don't scroll down if you don't want to see some pony intestines! :)

Such a good helper.

This week in anatomy lab we dissected the abdomen of the pony and had a quiz. Horses have a unique large intestine because they are hindgut fermenters. This means they have a large cecum and a very large ascending colon because this is were they ferment the grass they eat and get all the nutrients from it. Cows do this in the rumen which is before the stomach, which means they are foregut fermenters. 

Everything still in place.

 We removed the digestive tract one piece at a time. 

Removing the jejunum.

The whole GI tract. That big stuff on the left is the cecum and ascending colon. It's really big and confusing because it has all kinds of different sections we have to learn.

Julie holding the cecum.

 After we removed all of the stuff in the abdomen our professor removed the whole front end and just left us with the pelvis and hindlimbs. 

Funny story... after they removed the front end, we were left to move the hind end on to a table. Julie and I each grabbed a leg but when we lifted it up on the table his rear end was right in our face. (They had cut the tail off so everything was exposed.) The look on Julie's face (and mine too, I'm sure) was HILARIOUS!! We looked at each other and at the same time said "Let's roll him over." Well that was even worse cause then his stuff was in our face. We were laughing so hard we were crying. It was good to uplift the spirits after the quiz we had. Sorry if that story is weird. hahaha Vet students find humor in weird things. We have to, to make it through.

A little weird... I know.

I'm done with class for the week but tomorrow is full of studying!