I’ve had fewer wobbly recoveries since we started logging TPR every 15 minutes for the first hour and pain scores at 30, 60, and 120 minutes, with a warm water blanket set to 38°C in place before extubation. If you’re training new assistants, would a simple one-page checklist plus a phone timer for those intervals be useful, or do you have a better system for catching hypothermia and dysphoria early?
I use a laminated one-page checklist clipped to the cage and a repeating 15‑min timer; the tweak that caught more early chills was adding esophageal temps plus a quick touch — “ear tips tell the truth” — at every check. Only caveat with phone timers: label them (TPR, pain, blanket recheck at 30) and set vibrate, or the room turns into a slot machine.
And quick tip for Feb–June beaver calls: I carry a laminated stick-on staff gauge and snap before/after photos in the field app 24–48 hrs post ‘exclusion’ so outcomes are obvious without babysitting the site. Coyote hazing at dusk plays well, but if you bump a den March–May, , I back off and pivot to attractant hardening and a short buffer zone instead; @clairemonty91 your audit angle pairs nicely with a 5‑minute “trash walk” during the two evening workshops.
Quick example: our biggest dips were around 20–40 min, so we pre-warm 10–15 min before extubation and keep a forced‑air warmer on low through the first hour, with TPR every 15 and pain at 30/60/120 like you said. The tweak that caught more early chills was writing a cage‑front time stamp for each “TPR 15” and using a Bluetooth rectal probe that pings the phone timer — , no excuses to miss it. Small caveat: if they’re already 38.5°C, we swap the 38°C water blanket for a fleece + low air warmer to avoid overshoot.