This sweet young Paint mare, purchased by our clients in December, came to them with an old snake bite wound. They are estimating the bite to be about a year old, and still are having troubles with it being slightly swollen (under the bite, you can see a bit of swelling still,) and the bite site itself will ooze pus every day or two. She is not painful, eats well, is ridden, and is a very happy horse, but... something is just not quite right there with that bite, and her owner is seeking more information. I did give them the name and number of the new area horse vet, and they plan on talking with him as well. But, since this blog reaches lots of folks, I'd love to be able to pass along as much information as possible for this mare, AND to have it tucked away for future knowledge for ourselves.
Anyone? Insight? (Mikey, I am sure this is like, the LAST thing YOU want to think about today!!! For those who don't know, Ol' Thelma managed to get herself out in the middle of the night with some buds and go getting herself into trouble. Mikey was headed to the vet to get the silly fart looked at... Here's hoping for a speedy recovery for Thelma, and a Night's SLEEP for Mikey!!!)
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Snake Bite Questions
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8 comments:
Could be a chronic abscess and might need to be opened up, cleaned out, flushed with antibiotics and then followed up with a course of oral antibiotics until resolved. Probably something the vet would be best to evaluate.
That poor horse! Unfortunately I don't know anything about snake bites, we don't have venomous snakes here, thank goodness. Hope the owners can figure out what is going on!
I found a great article about this very subject, I'll find it and let you know what it said...I think I read it either in a horse newsletter or a book I have, great info. We dont have to worry to much about that around here so I didnt really take the info to memory...I'll let you know what I found though and maybe it will help, it was a homemade remedy and sworn by experts to work.
Dry heat over humidity any day. you can drop water on your head and cool down - then be dry in 5 min. :)
My friend had a mare with a chronic abscess, the vet did everything and it just NEVER went away. Flushed, rinsed, anti biotic...
I hope they can get it under control, poor girl...
I have like zero snakebite knowledge - sorry but will keep checking back cause I am curious to see Mikey's info.
Hmmmmm...I don't know much about snake bites, but I am going along with everyone's guess that it may have become a chronic abscess that needs surgery to correct it-and that may not even touch it.
Are they 100% it is an old snakebite and not something else? (I am thinking foreign body lodged in there somewhere?)
Definitely keep us posted. :)
Kate is likely very correct.
My black mare, Queenie was grabbed by another horse as a baby and still bears the indents of the bite marks on her neck. I never thought too much about it when she was growing up, but when she was about 4 I noticed that there were nude bumps in the bite mark and they were oozing. I doctored them and they stopped oozing, but didn't grow hair back. The next summer the same thing happened. I took her to a veterinarian for a chiropractic treatment and asked him to take a look at them. He opened that area up and removed about a thimbleful of granular material that resided in the flesh between the bite mark indents. He put a couple stitches in her and that was that. The indents are still there, but she has never had problems with that area oozing again.
While I've heard the bite area can abcess, I have never personally seen it happen, either on people or animals. But then I have only ever dealt with rattlesnake bites and don't you also have water moccasins and copperheads in that area?
Either way, I'm sure that a quick visit to the vet can fix her up.
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