Country veterinarian spays a female piglet (Vietnam)

Piglet is put back into its cage after the surgery!

Spaying is a common and simple surgical operation to remove or disable a female animal’s ovaries.

Here the operation takes place in the village's pig market. The screaming piglet is attached up-side down on a piece of wood. The veterinarian performs a small incision that does not cause any bleeding (he must have done that operation very often and knows exactly where to cut). Then he inserts his bare fingers (no gloves, no scrubbing) in the piglet's belly through the incision to find the ovaries. Hopefully the animal has a good immune system! The ovaries are extracted, ligatured and put back inside, then the incision is stitched. Of course no anesthetic is used, so the piglet was very vocal during the entire operation that lasted no more than 5 minutes. After the operation the piglet seemed totally exhausted and suddenly very quite, after oinking very loudly during the whole ordeal.

See the other photos of the piglet spaying operation.