Friday, October 28, 2011

Rooster Survives Rattlesnake Bite (Warning graphic pics)

Wow, what a lucky cockeral my Black Australorp is. Today I was outside feeding and my dominant Australorp cockeral was pestering the less dominant one which caused him to try and run outside.
I grabbed him by the chest and felt something strange in my hand. It felt kinda rough. I picked him up and looked at his chest and it had a huge gaping hole covered in gangrene and scabs.
Dead flesh and gangrene from rattlesnake bite
I took him inside the house and washed his wound with a clean washcloth and warm water. I gently peeled off the huge scabs and scrubbed off the chunks of dead flesh that were smelly and rotten. It looked like it must of happened at least 5 days ago. I do remember that he seemed sick about 5 days ago and was laying on the floor of the coop by himself. Hes a tough bird to survive this attack.
This is the wound after I cleaned off a lot of the dead and rotting tissue
I then gave him a shot of antibiotics and sprayed hydrogen peroxide on his wound. He did not fight me or make a peep as I did all these procedures.
I have had a bad time with rattlesnakes this year due to the drought in Texas. We have killed 62 rattlers, mostly babies, so far this year. One of the fang marks is visible on his chest near this wound.
Wound soaking in hydrogen peroxide
He should make a full recovery because he is eating and drinking. I was told that the rattler must of gave him what is called a dry bite which contains hardly any or no venom. I have lost 3 prize winning chickens to snake bites in the face in the last 3 months. What saved this guy was that it was in the chest and in the muscle. Hes one lucky bird. Hes a trooper.

3 comments:

  1. One seriously lucky Rooster. Not only to survive the bite, but also to have you tend to him and help him recover.

    ~~Matt~~

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW! I caught this thread from BYC and had to check it out. Wow is all I can say.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Today he is a gorgeous rooster and di good at a show recently

    ReplyDelete