Spiders - please be careful

conniegirl

conniegirl

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Thursday I got to the yard at about 2pm, got Cobus in from his paddock, he seemed very quiet but just thought he had been sunbathing, i took his sweet-itch hoodie off and was horrified to find the he had a grapefruit size swelling at the base of his neck on his right hand side and that the skin on his shoulder, belly and between his front legs was blistering and sloughing off.

Cue emergency vet call out, vet was thankfully just finishing with another emergency not far from me.
Lots of drugs for Cobus and the blistering finally stopped.
Cob is an amazing little pony and was an absolute trooper throughout, never getting stroppy or difficult despite how uncomfortable it must have been for him.

He is currently smothered in flamazine, rugged in clean fly rugs to try and stop any infection and on antibiotics and painkillers but he is now happy enough in himself.

The cause of all this was we think a spider bite, probably from a false widow spider (we have them in the area and its the tight time of year), cob obviously had a massive reaction to it.

Thursday morning cob had destroyed one of his flyrugs and the other was at home in the wash so i dug out the sweetitch hoodie from the rug trunk and shoved it on him. I didnt even think to check for spiders and my pony is now suffering for it.

Vet said this was the second case she had seen of this recently and ive also since seen a similar case on facebook.

So please please check all your rugs for spiders before you put them on and if they have been lurking in a box for a while wash them before using them.

Photos of my poor pony, these were taken friday afternoon as by the time i thought to take photos he was smothered in flamazine cream and friday morning i didnt have time. It is a lot less angry then it was on Thursday.
His left shoulder
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His belly455FD3BA-8763-495C-BD87-6B1980AB4038.jpeg
His better armpit (the other one was much worse but I concentrated on getting cream on it rather than taking photos)
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And just because he is beautiful any way this taken thursday eve after we had him settled, tbh i think he was most upset that we had interrupted his eating time
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Friends dog got bitten by a false widow last week and had a similar reaction, plus lost function in his back legs 😕
 
amymay said:
Friends dog got bitten by a false widow last week and had a similar reaction, plus lost function in his back legs 😕
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I hope doggy will be ok,

I think the reason we got away with just the skin problem is because we got onto it so fast and cob is obviously much bigger than a dog. Shudder to think what would have happened if i hadnt taken that rug off.
 
I got bitten by a spider a couple of weeks ago. My hand swelled up alarmingly and I had this huge blood blister type thing come up. The heat and itch was most unpleasant and I took myself off to the GP for some advice. It took a week to normalise again. You need to be careful of yourselves as well as the horses and dogs.
 
Horrid. Hope he’s on the mend soon! Never seen this in a po but seen an absolutely lifting spider bite reaction in a human specimen. Thanks for share x
 
Cinnamontoast said:
Poor pony! Flamazine is amazing, I used rather a lot of it in the past.



Is he regaining function? That's horrific. 😢
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Yes, he’s fine now after a couple of days rest, antibiotics and steroids. All the hair sloughed off where he’d been bitten, but is now starting to grow back. Very frightening for his owners though.
 
Oh good god! I had no idea spiders bit horses really! I joke about the spider problem in my stable, I even posted here about it! Slightly more scary now having read these stories.
 
I've got huge spiders in my stable and I need to put rugs away for cleaning.

I read this thread first thing and decided it was a job I need to persuade my OH to do. Not a spider fan. In particular not a poisonous spider fan.
 
Had one false black widow in my kitchen last year and one at the house I do cleaning. A friend who lives in Lancing says the are quite prolific there.
 
Having been bitten by one last year I can testify that it was one of the most painful things I have ever dealt with. I didn't realise at the time, I thought I had hurt my ankle while putting wood on the fire (I know!) but then lost the ability to weight bear on that leg and had to drag my leg around like a lump of wood for that night, I still had limited movement the next day. It hurt for over a week and I didn't really have much of a reaction, but you could see the bite mark.
 
Our neighbour was bitten recently and had a nasty time of it. I'm sure we had/have one in the greenhouse. Urgh! Poor pony..hope hes back to normal soon.
 
A close colleague was bitten by a false widow - the initial bite blistered, the blister grew and caused a small crater to form. Her leg was swollen and tender and non weight bearing for a few days. Took a month to be back to normal.
 
I have false widow spiders all over my house, especially the bathroom, they really like it there, almost had one join me in the shower yesterday lol

Just give things a brush/shake if they have been sitting around for a while.

Hope pony feel a better soon.
 
Eugh i hate spiders anyway with their horrible legs boke. I dont know if we have false widows here or not but ill deffo be keeping an eye! Ive just hoovered 3 normal ones off my ceiling...this is my worst time of year ever i just can't stop searching every corner and every cranny. They're out to get me!

Hope cobbus feels better after the treatment..poor little soul :(
 
Cobbus is feeling much better, everything has scabbed over and with the aid of a different fly rug he has been turned out.

Unfortunately there is a supply issue with flamazine so we are now having to use sudocream but the worst is over now.

Pic of Cobbus in his paddock
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Zero00000 said:
I have false widow spiders all over my house, especially the bathroom, they really like it there, almost had one join me in the shower yesterday lol

Just give things a brush/shake if they have been sitting around for a while.

Hope pony feel a better soon.
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Where are you? That sounds like my worst nightmare!

Glad to hear Cobbus is on the mend Conniegirl. I'm now suspiciously looking at all my rugs...
 
SEL said:
Glad to hear Cobbus is on the mend Conniegirl. I'm now suspiciously looking at all my rugs...
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My washing machine has been doing overtime. All fleeces and stable rugs have been through and turnouts have had the hoover turned on them
 
SEL said:
Where are you? That sounds like my worst nightmare!

Glad to hear Cobbus is on the mend Conniegirl. I'm now suspiciously looking at all my rugs...
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SE London/Kent. Spiders don't bother any of us, so they just stay until one of the cat eats them.
 
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