Ok, this is twice now in 6 months or so. Justin, nigerian dwarf, 11 months old. I found him this morning with a swollen face, I knew right away what happend. We killed a copperhead Tuesday afternoon, they are every freakin where out here.

Have given him 2 1/2 cc's Pen, no I dont have Bananmine or Dex, again the vet will not give them to me unless she feels it is absolutly neccesary. She prefers I give asprin. Said that he will be ok with just the Pen, and if I feel I must I can give him asprin. So I disolved some in water and syreinged it to him. I went out just a few mins ago to give him his dose of Pen and he is soooooo restless, his face is so swollen and he has nasal discharge that is yellowish in color, it is litterally just gooing out of his nose. The other side of his nose has been crusted up. He has not been to see the vet as she felt since I knew what to do from last time that it was not neccesary. I tried to give him some yogurt, but his face is so swollen it kills him for me to touch it. He took maybe 1 cc. It is so swollen he can't eat or drink anything. I don't know what else to do for him. Any suggestions? I know we have been thru all this before with Joy, but she did not have that gooey dicharge like he does.

Oh, temp is good. He weighs about 25-27 pounds.

Anything else I can do????????

I don't have any advice or anything else to add, poor baby, prayers coming your way for Justin and for you as well, hope the swelling goes down soon. g hug)

greese like cooking oil, get him to take that about a cup if you can get it down him im sure one of the others will be along to help more here

I would certainly call the vet back, maybe if they see him they will realize the emergency situation!
Your baby needs Dex and banamie to help with the discomfort and the swelling. He may also need another antibiotic as well. Have the vet check his lungs to be sure he doesn't have a secondary infection going on!
Good luck!

tristain if the proper meds arent around i know all the duck hunters use greese for their dogs in case of snakebit most feed it to them prior to the hunt just in case. i dont know how it works but they all swear by it even my vet does.

if you have a lot of trouble with snakes you may want to sprinkle mothballs out around your property sankes dont like them and try hard to avoid them.i do my property every year and have had no trouble so far till this year i forgot to do around the goldfish pond and got a couple in there.lost a few fish to so that wont happen again.

dang girl, mabey warm/cold compresses to keep swelling down till you can get the meds. if you want your vet can call my vet for a consoult on what to do...the number to my vet is 501-796-8400 and it is chris gentry. my vet issuses me what ever i need no questions asked...

casandra what antibotic would be better than pen? i have some bio-mycin i could send if that would help???

Laura I am not sure, never dealt with a snake bite. I was thinking Excenel or Polyflex but a vet would now what is best!

I agree with Cassandra. Definitely call the vet back and try real hard to get some Dex or Banamine. Aspirin will help a little but not for pain that severe, the swelling or possible shock he could go into.
I have never heard of using grease so can't say if it will work or not but be very careful anytime you administer oil to a goat. If it gets in their lungs it will kill them, if you give too much you'll have a secondary problem with diahrea.
Keep up with the Pen in case of infection. If the wound is real bad and weepy you can also flush it out with Pen.
Do you have any antihisamine on hand that you could give him? This could possibly help his nasal discharge.

yeah some benadryl.....that would help relax him some and help with the nasal discharge.

Tristain, I am so sorry you are dealing with another snake-bite. I have never dealt with a snake bite either. If you haven't already, I would go marching into the vet's office with that baby. Maybe if they saw him, they would take the situation more serious. Prayers coming your way!!!!!

If you are using L.L. Pen, I would up the amount to 4 cc 2 times a day. You need to get some banamine to help with the swelling,...give probios and a b-plex shot as well,...

Tristian I am so sorry, I have been covered up with work this week and didn't check here when I got home this morning, as I had to be at work again in just 4 hours...
I would do what Faith suggested and pumped up that Pen to 4cc's twice a day...Clean out his nose and keep it clean, Call her back and ask her how much aspirn that you give as a max and give it to him...She is a good vet, but this is the reason why I don't care for her too much.
The Bendryl will knock him if you give too much, and give it only every 12 hours...Compress will help with the swelling, Give him Nurtidrench and Ensure, he won't be able to eat but you have to keep something in him...Make some oatmeal and give to him as well..

http://bigfive.jl.co.za/snakebite.htm is where I pulled this information from.

Tristain,


Is there an update on your little goat ? Were you able to get back with the vet? Do tell

Okay, this is not so bad as you might think. Take a deep breath. Gonna be okay.

Copperheads are a pain in the you know what but their bite is not deadly. It is painful but it does not affect the nervous system nor does it kill the skin. Swelling is your biggest concern. You don't want the air way to swell shut.

In case of copperhead snake bite, you give benadryl and keep the animal as cool and quiet as you can. It will swell up and look terrible and usually within 24 hours you will see big improvement. Within two to three days, you won't even know he was bitten. Very weird.

Now, occassionally you will have one who will have a severe reaction to the venom and you have to watch that the throat doesn't swell shut. If you think that is happening you need to get to the Vet asap so they can give them a shot of the strong stuff.

We have copperheads all over the place and I cannot tell you how many times we have had to deal with this. We have about gone crazy over them until this year. Now no laughing. We had a black snake show up and decide to call our place home. Ever since he arrived, we have not seen one copperhead. Not one. I am told they will kill copperheads. Man, that black snake is very welcome to stay. (John says it is a king snake.... but I have not gotten close enough to make that call. To me, he is just a big ole black snake.) Maybe you need a black snake to come and visit your place??? <_<

Yea for the blacksnake!!!!!!! Shew I hate snakes, but if the blacksnake has helped this much, then he must be a good snake - if there is such a thing. :D

Thank you all for the advice. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I have been sick with bronchitis, some sort of cold has been thru my whole family. It made its way back thru once more and yesterday my 4 yr old had a febrile sezuire from having this mess. We have been thru this before with my younger son, but not with Bryce. So I was tied up at the hospital with him yesterday. He is doing fine now, just very tired.

Ok, on to Justin. I was able to get him to the vet yesterday, before the seizure incident. My vet thought that he was going to be fine, she had me give him some Benedryl and more asprin. She told me to continue giving the Pen, with is Procaine Pen, I beleive. Her directions were 1 cc per 10 pounds. This is twice a day. I have given him some Ensure, as well as the oatmeal. As of last night he was trying to eat hay. I have been trying to give him some gatorade as well. The swelling has gone down some and his spirits are up a bit. The nasal discharge has stopped. I agree Yvonne, she is a great vet, some times I just want to scream at her though. However she is the one that all other vets will send you straight to once you say livestock. He has never been sick, not even a cough, so I am sure he is all out of sorts. I sat out there yesterday for about 2 hours just letting him sit in my lap and lovin on him. So I think that we should see some major improvement this morning. I will give another update as soon as I can. With dh at work and the boys and I sick, it may take a bit. I appreciate all of your help, you all are just so amazing.

As far as the moth balls go, they won't bother the goats? I have heard of using them but was afraid to put them in their actual pasture area. That is the only place we have ever seen any copperheads. We did find a black snake out there a couple years back, but I have not seen it again. I assume because the goat area is so wooded is why we have such problem with snakes in their. That will all be taken care of this winter. We are going to thin it out considerably and redo some of the pasture, in hopes that will clear out the snakes some.

Again, thank you all for your help. Will update soon.

Oh please give my little buddy a kiss! (The human one...) I do hope he feels better!
Good Job in just knocking down Barbara's door, sometimes you just have to do that with her....Here's hoping that today is a much better day for you all!

What is that saying, "when it rains it tries to drown ya"!!! Wow, you have sure had your dose, haven't you? Wish I could run over and bring you dinner or something useful. You are in our prayers and may your family return to good health very soon.

I hope your littel snake bite victim is much recovered today as well. I bet it was sitting in your lap and all that love that will perk him up! Lots of good thougths coming your way. angel)

Tristain, I am glad that things are looking up for everyone, 2 legged and 4 legged. :D

That is such great news. Now if you can get you and the family better you'll be flying. I hate that everybody is so sick and I'm sure that seizure was terrifying, you poor thing.
Prayers coming your way for everybody's speedy recovery.

Thank you all for all of your thoughts. Justin is doing very well. The swelling has gone down trememndously, and he was out and about very well today. I am so happy that he is doing good. Thank you all again for all of your help and kind words:)

YAY! Great news about Justin. Now, I hope you and yours get over those colds soon!

Good news about Justin! :D

I wouldn't put the mothballs where the goats can get to them, they will put anything in their mouths just to see what it is.
Several men here, I am not calling names, hit some golf balls into my goat's pasture and I saw at least one goat put a ball in her mouth. I was going to shoot someone if she swallowed it but she spit it out. Goats will not eat just anything but they will put odd things into their mouths!

So very true about those golf balls!!! Some of those same golf balls came home with me, and my son thought it would be fun to play with them in the goats area, so now I get to find them all before the goats do!!

A good way to see how nosey goats are and how much they like to check things in their mouths is to put something new to them in the yard (crackers, nuts, fruit) and see how fast it gets into the mouth!!

oh yea they will i put the moth balls around my property on the outside of the fence to keep them from coming into goats area and like the tac room of your barn or in places where the goats cant get to.they do work really well though

Thanks all. I will try putting the moth balls out. Just have to make sure that I keep them away from the children, 2 and 4 legged :) Justin is doing great now. He is back to eating the grain just fine and is even fighting for it a bit, lol. Thank you all.

Thats great news Tristain! Justin seems to be getting back to normal now!

oh lordy i've done the seizer thing once with ashten, goodness that sure wipes you out. then being sick your self, and a sick goat....your a strong woman. i'm prayen for you!!

Tristian this is great news!