Xylazine

RE: Xylazine

mariette asselbergs — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:12:21 GMT

Used it for many years in Holland and later in Africa. Good with ketamine in dogs and cats,( plus diazepam if dogs show nervous epileptic like symptoms due to the ketamine). Agree with Michael that it can be tricky in small ruminants, but never had a cow dead with it and was our life saver doing anything more complicated in wild cows/oxen. Need to monitor tympany because burb reflex is suppressed for a while after using it in cattle.

Mariette

RE: Xylazine

Mark Hedberg — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 08:54:16 GMT

Xylazine and ketamine are quite safe - I used routinely in dogs and cats when working in western Saudi Arabia. (we didn't have medetomidine.) Sure, in the UK I'll use medetomidine, but xylazine is very safe - unless there's a pre-existing health issue, you can be generous with doses 'the bigger third ml :) ' .

It's 0.1ml per kg. Make sure it's IM in smallies.

RE: Xylazine

Virginia Campbell — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 00:58:58 GMT

Think they taught us in college that its more likely to be arrthythmogenic that medetomidine. (They told us that about halothane vs iso too)

But yes, is cheap. The large animal version is or was very cheap in the USA and I saw it used a lot there in equine practice in preference to detomidine or romifidine. I never fancied it much in horses - seemed to get more sweating, some slight colics and more swaying, droopy headed horses for the same amount of sedative effect as Domosedan or Sedivet (the droopy head being a particularly head PITA (Pain In The Arms!)when you're trying to hoist its head up to rasp teeth).

RE: Xylazine

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 23:44:43 GMT

I've killed sheep with xylazine. Only really use it in dogs and cats pre-PTS or to make vomit.

RE: Xylazine

Silvia Maldonado — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 22:36:42 GMT

Me too. I used to neuter lots of cats for charities abroad, and years ago it was worthy due to cost. With 0.1ml/kg of xylacine 2% and 0.1ml/kg of ketamine 100mg/ml I had 20-30 mins of good anaesthesia. Only once I saw a boxer dying in a routine castration, who was premed with xylacine and maintain with halotane.

RE: Xylazine

Catriona MacIntyre — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 18:38:36 GMT

I've used it in the past in combination with ketamine for cat anaesthetics. I suspect I had less anaesthetic deaths and recovery problems than with the more fashioable triple combo with medetomidine.

I still use it for mass neutering of feral cat colonies where I may be doing 15-20 neutering ops (mix of spay and castrate) in one stretch. I find it reliable and fairly smooth. If they vomit it's only because they had food in their stomach anyway, in which case I'm happy for that to happen before they are asleep.

I use a third of an ml of each (ketamine into syringe first) intramuscular. If it's a big cat it gets a big third, a small cat gets a small third The small kittens I did in the last batch got 0.15-0.25 of each drug. They were seriously wild and weighing each individually was going to cause them a lot of stress. No problems, but maybe xylazine has a wider safety margin than the tiny doses of medetomidine

RE: Xylazine

John Flynn — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:21:33 GMT

Personally, I think xylazine is obsolete other than perhaps to make cats vomit. Has no benefits over medetomidine to my understanding, but possibly an inferior safety profile.

RE: Xylazine

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 12:03:34 GMT

I have been advised that there are pharmacological/physiological reasons not to use it routinely, but I'll leave it to someone a lot more intelligent than me to explain that one.

A locum introduced us to it many years ago when before we used ACP +/- and opiate. It became our routine pre-med. agent in cats before my opening line became a consideration.

It is reliable sub-cut and in my hands been safe but a lot of people don't like Xylazine because of the emetic effect. However, it is that property that I utilise in cats to make them vomit if we suspect they have eaten. Also used as routine in charity cat neutering for the same reason and because it is cheap. I have never used it in dogs though.