Rattlesnake bite experiences?

[Hampton_Bay]

My Arab was bitten on the LF heel bulb by a snake, likely a rattlesnake. We have several types here, and it happened overnight, so no way to know for sure the type of snake. There are clear puncture wounds and the associated swelling and pain.

Vet has him on Bute, penicillin, cold hosing. He gave one shot of dex yesterday morning. The penicillin is going over fantastically for a needle-phobic and FIT 15.2h horse who cow kicks when he feels a needle on his butt.

Any tips for recovery? The only vets here are small animal vets who happen to see horses on the side, but most people here can’t be bothered to feed their horses so the vets don’t do a ton of horse care.

[SuzieQNutter]

I am on the other side of the World and I know nothing about rattle snakes. Your horse would most likely be dead by now if bitten over here.

I have been told that vitamin C injections are good thing to give if bitten. I dont think the injection would do any harm.

[irish_horse]

I think you may have a different type of rattlesnake in Louisiana than here in Northern California, but a friends horse was bitten on a trail ride this summer. Didn’t even know until she got home and he wanted to just lay down, found tiny puncture wounds rapidly swelling. Vet was called with supportive care (banamine, antibiotics, I think a compression wrap). He did end up stopping eating anything but mash and drastically lost weight from stress, but ended up just fine. He was a fit endurance anglo-arab. I send best wishes to your horse, I hope he will be ok!

[cloudyandcallie]

If you can identify the snake then someone can tell you if you need the rattlesnake antivenom or if you need just something for the bacteria from a non venomous snake.

PM 2jakes. She is a snake expert in Miami-Dade. She was on Animal Planet about snakes. She knows venom and anti-venom.

But you need to ID the snake if you can.

Hattie got what I thought was a small nick on her heel a few years ago. When my antibiotics internally and externally did not help after a day of treatment, and she got a swollen leg and chest and edema in her stomach, I called vet and he came right over… He said nonpoisonous snake, I never saw the snake, and she got lots of meds and a cast on her hoof for 5 weeks. She recovered well. But that was a nonpoisonous snake. A rattlesnake can be fatal.

[GoodTimes]

Don’t assume all rattlesnakes are the same. Research the ones in your area and how lethal they might actually be.
We have the Massasauga Rattlesnake where I’m from, they spend most of their time on the islands, not so much inland so I’ve never heard of a horse being bitten.
Our hospital is also the antivenom depot for the province, however, they reassure everyone every summer that a bite isn’t necessarly fatal for an adult, and that they don’t need to rush to the hospital. A child would be more of an emergency.
A horse? Would probably just get some supportive care.

[IPEsq]

Out here, I’m told by someone who recently went through this unfortunately, that the adult rattlers won’t inject venom into a horse because they know they can’t kill it (maybe they don’t care about killing it?) but may still bite. The younger ones will inject venom and the horse will be very sick for a while but can recover with the kind of supportive care you are doing.

[snowrider]

I’ve seen several in CA on horses and dogs (and one idiot male friend) They mostly know which snake it is so give the anti venom if it’s caught fairly quickly and not otherwise. I’ve always seen DMSO given to reduce swelling but that might be location dependant? The main risks in horses and dogs seem to be suffocating from the swelling, local tissue death and infection, not the venom itself in our local snakes. Near the joint is not good as some local infection is almost inevitable and I have seen two nasty joint infections secondary to leg bites on horses. Other than that it usually heals up ok.

Do you have a local vet hospital you can call for input? I’d want to make very sure I was doing everything in the first day or two to avoid complications. They are almost always worse than the bite itself, at least with the Pacific rattlesnakes and horses ime. Your snakes may vary!

[walkinthewalk]

This AAEP article may be of some help.

http://www.aaep.org/info/horse-health?publication=775

Also, while I hope this doesn’t happen again, I was raised in NE Ohio where we also had a large population of Massasauga Swamp Rattlers. I was taught to keep two pieces of 1/2" in garden hose, slathered with Vaseline in a sterile container.

Horses bit on the muzzle or face are in danger due to air passages swelling shut and they can’t breath thru their mouth. Putting the 12" - 14" pieces of garden hose in both nostrils prevents their nostrils from going closed.

That also means finding the horse right away.

Sending good thoughts your way for a complete recovery:)

[Hampton_Bay]

Unfortunately there is no way to identify the snake, as it happened overnight in a 20 acre pasture with about 5 acres of wooded area. It looks like he stepped on it based on the bite location. The spacing of the punctures looks like an adult snake, not a juvenile.

I am taking 2 other horses to the horse vet 2 hours away tomorrow, but this boy is too unstable on his feet to make the trip on our bumpy roads. He is a bit improved tonight, aside from a small wound on the back of the opposing front leg that has some localized swelling.

We do have eastern diamondbacks, pygmy rattles, and copperheads at the very least. Cotton mouths too, but those would be unlikely in this pasture.

He may never load in a trailer again though. The only way I have found with our setup to do penicillin is to load him and give the shot through the window. He is too dangerous otherwise.

[Amwrider]

I had a horse bitten by a pygmy rattler a couple of years ago. We did not see it happen, but we have found many pygmies on the farm over the years and only one diamondback.

The leg swelled up from the pastern up to the stifle. This particular horse also had a prior leg injury, a barb wire cut to the front of the hock with a scar there.

We cold hosed and gave dex and bute. We did not immediately know it was a snake bite. A large cyst developed. A couple of days afterwards when I went to cold hose it, as soon as the water touched the cyst it burst and a lot of pus came out. The vet irrigated it and we found the puncture marks when he irrigated.

The horse was put on antibiotics. We had a lot of issues with getting the swelling down and the vet thinks it was the horse’s age and the scar tissue on his hock interfering with fluid movement in the leg. The problem we had with this horse is that he would not keep a bandage on. He would bite at leg wraps and if we put on a bib to keep him from chewing the bandages off, he would somehow rub his legs on something (maybe each other?) and still get the bandages off. The horse would also chew at the wound.

The cyst area developed in to a rather large wound due to the necrotic effects of the venom.

It took many months with this horse. The bite occurred in May and I think it was February when we started riding him again. We had many summer issues with the wound which hampered healing.

Horses have a very good resistance to rattlesnake venom. Human anti-venom is made using horse blood serum (people allergic to horses cannot take most anti-venoms) and with rattlesnakes most horses are able to handle bites to the extremities. It is bites to the nose that are dangerous as the swelling can shut airways.

The snakes usually prefer to leave rather than bite something that is too big for it to eat. If a venomous snake bites and does not inject venom it is usually because the snake recently ate and has not replenished its venom glands yet.

[jawa]

I had horse horse bitten by a copperhead. The bite was near the fetlock. Tremendous swelling in a very short period of time.

Vet was called. Antibiotics given due to nasty mouths of any snake. Dex was given during the visit, with Lasix provided for 7-10 days to keep swelling down. Compression and cold hosing were also added to the treatment plan.

I would get your regular vet to consult with the nearest vet college to see what the Tx plan should be for the typical snake bites in your area.

I had another horse bitten by a copperhead, but it was a dry bite, no swelling from venom, but a vet was called due to worry of infection by nasty mouth.

[Hampton_Bay]

We have consulted the vet, who gave dex and said Bute and antibiotics. He appears to have a second bite on the back of the other front leg. I found it last night when I shaved both fronts so that the dmso would actually reach the skin. Mild swelling but no lameness there. He is much more sound today, though still hobbling around. Eating normally.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=Hampton Bay;8892995]
We have consulted the vet, who gave dex and said Bute and antibiotics. He appears to have a second bite on the back of the other front leg. I found it last night when I shaved both fronts so that the dmso would actually reach the skin. Mild swelling but no lameness there. He is much more sound today, though still hobbling around. Eating normally.[/QUOTE]

If he is dangerous to medicate, you could haul him to the vet clinic and let them do that for you for a week or two, until off injections?
Vets here do that for such horses, if they are bad to medicate or the owners are not able to.
Vet clinics have stocks and tranquilizers to let them handle difficult horses that need to be treated.

A friend that can do her own vet work fine, had a big horse giving her some trouble with medicating his eye.
She didn’t want to have to struggle with it, so she left him at the vet clinic for a few days, where they did it without any trouble and the horse was fine afterwards.

We had a few horses snakebitten over the years, the last three, we had antivenin on hand and that really helped keep swelling down.

Our vet used to get all that had expiration dates from the hospital and that is, after checking it was still ok, what we used on our horses.

While a bite on the head is more dangerous as far as a horse dying from asphyxiation, the ones we had bitten on the leg, one mare twice, take much longer, months to go down and heal, when a head bite was over in a few weeks.

Hope your horse does fine from now on.

[FLeventer]

Sending jingles for your horse. Hoping for a quick recovery!

[snowrider]

[QUOTE=Hampton Bay;8892995]
We have consulted the vet, who gave dex and said Bute and antibiotics. He appears to have a second bite on the back of the other front leg. I found it last night when I shaved both fronts so that the dmso would actually reach the skin. Mild swelling but no lameness there. He is much more sound today, though still hobbling around. Eating normally.[/QUOTE]

That’s really good news, now you just have to be super vigilant about infection brewing under the skin but it sounds like you guys were on top of it from the start and the snake didn’t inject much venom to begin with.

[Hampton_Bay]

He’s only dangerous for shots, but as long as he’s in the trailer he is ok. He can’t kick me in there (slant load). He is getting a bit better with the shots, but he tenses up so badly that it’s like trying to force a needle through saddle leather. There is one vet here who has the facilities to hospitalized a horse, but he’s not so bad that it’s worth their extremely high rates.

Any idea how long until we are out of the woods for tissue necrosis and huge open wounds?

[snowrider]

A week I’d say.

That sucks about the shots. Penicillin is awfuly painful, having had it as a human. Can you vet give you something to give him ahead of time to take the edge off?

[Marla_100]

My only experiences is w/ a Water Mocassin bite on the upper nose of a horse,
vet said just watch closely for a few days. talk about horrendous swelling- YIKES.

Then I had a small cat get zapped by a 6 ft. Diamonback. Witnessed that bite,
rushed to local vet, given anti=venom and all was fine, probably a dry bite.

Here’s hoping your guy is getting better and fully recovers.

[Boo]

You might have been lucky with the bite location. Alot of snake venom sacks are located at the base of ‘tooth’ so if they hit bone etc they often dont get much venom in. Especially as most animals usually react pretty quickly and violently away from the pain. Good luck!! I hope he recovers quickly!!

[glitterless]

Do you have to give injectable penicillin? My Arab is terrible with needles, too, so I do oral antibiotics when possible. Best of luck.