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In week 1 following the snake bite, the calf lurched back and forwards from death. Its impossible to find the bite site in a hairy animal, but it must have been around the mouth. His nose swelled up and broke out in blisters, he had enormous difficulty swallowing, his tongue was paralysed making it impossible for him to suckle, in fact he seemed to have lost a young animals instinct to suckle. He walked with an exaggerated high stepping gait. Interestingly he could still moo so he bellowed himself hoarse. He was definitely blind as he continued to bump into fences and trees. So where to for a calf who can't see and can't drink or eat?
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| the junior members of the herd with 'snake bite' |
It was obvious that he would not survive without hydration, we gave him milk and water 10 ml at a time from a syringe. Amazingly his mother, a big Hereford who normally wouldn't tolerate a human closer than 1 or 2 metres, let us milk her in the early days. Some days the calf tentatively drank out of a bucket, he even tried to drink out of the dam. He regained some vision and managed to walk around trees and not blunder into the dam and drown.
In week 2 he took a big set back, he seemed to become so weak and depressed that he was barely able to walk, he stopped even trying to bellow and refused to drink, all the hard work was coming to nothing. Towards the end of the week we found him flat on the ground, neck stretched out and his breathing shallow - the end seemed near.
The calf was desperately dehydrated and goodness knows what the snake venom was doing internally
the list of effects of snake bite is scary
- coagulation is inhibited
- renal failure
- myotoxicity - muscle destruction, including diaphragm, heart and lung muscle
- double or blurred vision
- neurotoxic paralysis
the normal treatment, for a human that is -- 'administer anti venom as soon as possible to neutralise the venom'
but we didn't have that option. Instead drastic dehydration measures were called for and the litany of lethal effects would just have to wait.
No time to find a 'non irritating radiopaque polyurethane tube with a Y adapter for feeding' in it's place we had a plastic funnel, (that I worried had been previously used to fill a fuel can !) a metre of plastic tubing, 4 litres of water and 2 litres of milk. We had our feeding tube. The calf was too weak to resist, so down the tube went and 6 litres of fluid gurgled through the funnel into his empty rumen.
We waited not expecting much.
Then a small miracle happened, about 2 hours later the calf stood up. As he stumbled along he bumped into his mother and inadvertently discovered her bulging udder, instinct must have taken over at about the same time as the paralysis lessened, he tentatively started to suckle.
In the third week he made steady progress. His sight improved, he began to walk normally and he was totally enjoying being back at his free milk bar, he even started to nibble some grass.
Cows aren't meant to have a great brain but his mum is obviously delighted, she licks him from head to tail, nuzzles him and generally doesn't let him out of her sight, they take their morning and afternoon naps cuddled up together and the herd is back to normal.
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| mother and son back in the paddock together |
Snake bite trivia picked up along the way
a boa constrictor knows how long it takes to squeeze the life out of it's victim by detecting it's decreasing heart rate
a snake senses smell in stereo- through it's forked tongue- it moves to attack on the side with the strongest smell or it retreats away from the smell
snakes also sense heat and vibration in stereo
snakes cleverly over stimulate clotting using up all the blood coagulant factors resulting in both massive internal clotting and bleeding.
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| I'm a survivor ! |
