botulism scare

Re: botulism scare

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:49:27 GMT

We had a problem with this some years back when we did a lot of work for a local wildlife rescue association. It seemed to occur in a dry summer when the rivers were low and ducks were probably having to bottom graze in the stagnant sludge in river beds. Like Marie there was a limit to what we could do as funds were limited but there were not any cases in pet species eating dead ducks!

Re: botulism scare

Emily Gover — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 08:05:24 GMT

Thanks, the above answers have been very helpful. Its my weekend on call so trying to be prepared. Will try to worry less and see what we can do for the ducks

Re: botulism scare

Virginia Campbell — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 23:08:54 GMT

I have only seen botulism in dogs once (well - pretty sure it was botulism - no money so we didn't send off the samples to inject into mice or whatever weird way you diagnose it - probably better ways now).

It was when I was a new grad and was in a pack of foxhounds,. They'd been fed butcher's waste which contained a lot of chicken, and the huntsman thought that batch may have got warm or been a bit off.

The first one went off her legs and he shot her not knowing what it was but thinking must be something v bad. Then when more hounds started to go down he realised that he'd better do something. I saw several of them and it seemed to come on them quite quickly - they started a bit staggery on the back legs, by evening they'd be right off the back legs with flaccid paralysis, by next morning they'd be off their front legs and just about able to raise their heads. The first to go down were the most severely affected - he got new cases over the following days but the ones that were affected later were just a bit wobbly.

There wasn't the money to treat them all properly so I kept in the worst one and got him and the kennel staff to nurse the rest at the kennels - well bedded, turning them every few hours, massaging their limbs and syringing water into them carefully and slowly. I gave him a big bottle of Synulox to cover all of them for aspiration pneumonia. Think I also got him to express bladders. I didn't do much follow up but according to him they all survived (took a good few days for the worst ones to get up again) and regained full neuro function and were hunting again come autumn. Don't know if the first one would have made it - as it seemed to be "first the worst" I suppose she may have succumbed to respiratory paralysis or aspiration pneumonia if he hadn't done away with her.

Assuming this was botulism and not some other neurotoxin, my advice would be - in the words of Jonesy in Dad's Army- Don't Panic! These hounds looked unnervingly bad but did get better.

Re: botulism scare

karen jones — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:31:35 GMT

We had several cows from the same herd die of botulism after chicken muck was spread on fields nearby. Signs were quite like staggers though most wre found dead. This was solved by moving them off the field. The dogs on the farm were ok as were the people .

Re: botulism scare

Marie Kubiak — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:52:20 GMT

I was under the impression that the toxin binds to nervous tissue tightly so antitoxin only mops up loose circulating toxin and is of limited use. For wildlife we use lots of charcoal, supportive care and crossed fingers but to be honest we haven't considered more expensive options due to costing the practice too much.

Anyone know if mammals more tolerant of ingested toxin as I have only ever seen avian cases but surely mammalian insectivores are equally at risk from the toxin concentrating effect of maggots feeding on carcasses?

Marie