My Essential Questions:

• How does treatment differ for different types of animals, wild and domestic, and how do you learn what types of treatment techniques are best?
• How can shadowing a professional veterinarian help me to better understand wildlife rehabilitation and release?
• How can learning the best methods to use when caring for injured/sick wildlife, help me to better care for animals on my farm (chickens, geese, sheep, and wild animals), especially since vets aren’t trained to support long-term health?

 

1. Take a look back at your essential question. Did you answer it? Do you think that question was a good frame for your Senior Project? If not, how would you phrase that question now?

Looking back at my original essential questions, I think I was able to answer parts of them, but I do wish I made them slightly more specific. I think these questions were a good frame for my senior project originally (especially since I didn’t know enough to make them more specific), but now knowing what I know through my experiences, I would phrase the questions differently. One of the rephrased essential questions I’ve answered is: How does treatment differ for different species of birds? Another one of my essential questions that I was unable to fully answer involved me needing to use the knowledge I’ve accumulated and applying it to situations on the farm when there is an injured farm animal. Thankfully, I didn’t need to care for an injured animal on the farm during this 6-week stretch, but I will use this information in the future when inevitably there is a hurt/sick animal.

 

2. You had a sense of what you would learn and do during Senior Project. Did you have to adjust your expectations?

I did have to adjust the plan for a week or two since unexpected things happened on the farm in which I needed to stay instead of going to my internship. During one week we had a very pregnant sheep who had a severe calcium deficiency and it looked like she was in labor. I had to help make sure she didn’t need assistance giving birth, and when we learned it was a calcium deficiency we had to try and find a vet able to come to the farm and give her medicine to treat it.

 

3. Did you meet your goal(s) for Senior Project? Explain in detail.

My goals for my senior project were to learn how a rehabilitation center operates, and if I would be interested in pursuing the pre-vet track in college and eventually a career in veterinary medicine. I had previously never been able to be around a vet/rehabilitator that didn’t work primarily with either cats and dogs or farm animals. I’ve always been very interested in caring for/treating birds (chickens, ducks, geese), so I was excited to see if this experience would help me figure out if I wanted to specialize in treating birds (specifically wildlife). This internship definitely answered that question for me (and it’s a yes!) I can see myself in the future working at or operating my own wildlife rehabilitation center that primarily deals with birds.

 

4. What challenges did you face throughout your project? How did you overcome those challenges?

It was initially difficult for me to not plan every minute of my senior project, and then adjust my plans when something came up. I found after week two or three that I was able to spend that time to instead see what needed my help on the farm or rehabilitation center the most, and I was able to focus on the actual experiences and spend my time much more meaningfully and productively.

 

5. What risks did you take, especially for those who created a product? How did those risks pay off?

I took a risk in interning and a rehabilitation center that I knew nothing about prior to the research I did during the week prior to senior project starting. I hoped the experiences I took from the internship would help me understand the treatment and main causes of accidents for these birds. This risk did pay off because I was able to learn so much more about treatment than I had thought I would, and I was able to be around birds of prey and baby birds needing to be fed every couple of minutes, which I had never been able to previously do.

 

6. What growth or understanding did you experience through Senior Project? How has the experience changed you, or your concept of yourself? Consider skills, attitudes, habits, resources, capabilities,, etc. Are you more confident of your abilities? 

My knowledge in treating birds has expanded greatly. There is a huge difference between caring for domestic farm animals every day and treating barred owls and red-tailed hawks that have sight issues or are unable to fly due to missing flight feathers. I’ve been able to work on the habit of being more flexible with what I’m doing with my time. I’ve learned how to “go with the flow” and learn from every experience including those that I hadn’t planned.

 

7. What surprises did you experience? What were the unexpected moments of learning or experience?

I had previously never seen an actual lamb birth (I had only seen the sheep right before they gave birth, or the lambs on the ground moments after). Seeing a couple births this year was an amazing experience that I never would have been able to have had I not been able to be upstate every day during senior project. I was able to witness and help during the most difficult birth in which a pregnant sheep gave birth to triplets (who all were breech, and were inside water bags which isn’t normal at all). We were all so worried that they had breathed the water before we burst the bags which would mean they would die within 48 hours from suffocation (if the water was in their lungs). Since we were all there to assist in the birth, we could help get the lambs out of the bags and get all the water out of their mouths in time. They all were able to survive and this experience was so amazing to be able to witness. There’s nothing like knowing you helped make sure three baby sheep were able to survive and the mom sheep (who had lost a couple lambs in past years due to her strange births), was able to have all her lambs survive.

 

8. What questions has Senior Project raised for you? (Personal, institutional, philosophical, global, etc.)

I’m interested now in what the primary causes are in accidents involving birds of prey. Through research I’ve done, more than 95% of the injuries birds of prey suffer from (which lead to vision impairment, blindness, flightlessness, death, etc.), are caused by collisions with cars. Since we are the reason so many of these birds are suffering from life-changing injuries, there has to be something we can do to decrease their risk of colliding with our cars.

 

9. Has your Senior Project experience influenced your future planning in terms of work, education, or the development of personal interests?

These experiences have shown me just how much I want to be around animals all the time, and be able to care for, and help animals. At this point, I definitely want to be on the pre-health track in college. I’m not sure if I might want to change my interest to medical school (human medicine), since I haven’t yet been able to do an internship in this field.

 

10. When you reflect on the entire process, of what are you most proud? Least?

I’m proud of all the new animals on the farm that I know would never have been able to be born if I wasn’t here for these 6 weeks. I’m also so proud of my initiative in seeking out the internship at Ravensbeard because it has been so amazing learning from other volunteers and a rehabilitator who has been doing this for so many years.

 

11. What would you do differently if you could do Senior Project again?

If I could do senior project again, I would want to tell myself that I didn’t need to plan every minute of every day and my schedule would workout on its own. I would also want to start documenting more, earlier since I definitely regret not having as many pictures towards the beginning of my senior project.

 

12. What was the hardest aspect of the Senior Project process and experience? Most rewarding?

The hardest part of senior project was seeing that a lot of birds don’t make it, and it’s really hard to see them when they’re super healthy, and then see them slowly go downhill. It’s difficult to know you did everything you could, and it still wasn’t enough. It’s so rewarding to just see all the birds and other farm animals thrive after they had a somewhat difficult birth/hatch. It’s also really amazing to see them with their moms (the chicks and the lambs) and learn how to eat grass and dig for things while copying their mom.

 

13. What is the one thing you want your audience to learn or understand from your presentation on Senior Project Evening?

I want my audience to understand just how much I’ve learned about animal care and treatment. I also want to highlight the information I’ve learned on the causes of injury for many birds of prey (and other wild birds as well). There is a lot that we can all do to change the outcome of many of these birds’ lives. I also want to make sure they hear the great stories of these animals and see the pictures/videos I took of the amazing recoveries that many of these birds have had.

 

14. How might you demonstrate your learning?

I’m not sure exactly what I want the final product to be, but I want it to be able to have the pictures/videos I took of these birds, as well as the stories that go with each animal. Depending on the format I might want to share the stories myself while everyone watches the film of the bird, or I could have the story displayed on the slide next to the documentation.