Snake season

The snakes are up and about.  A few days of warm weather and they shake off their winter blues and start prowling the Bush Capital again.
Binka met one on her rounds on Monday and lost the fight.  She is paralysed and in hospital on a drip and regular purrrrrrrrrr therapy until she can eat and walk again.

Binka meows a greeting and rests again

Binka on a drip and a well padded bed

Tiger on the prowl

Tiger spent a few days in hospital this week after a paralysing encounter with a brown snake. As you can see he was unsteady on his feet and stayed close to the ground when trying to move. If he'd waited any longer before alerting his humans to his condition he would have been like a floppy doll and completely unable to walk. At the end of summer and autumn when snakes are low in venom cats can take several hours to develop the muscle weakness.  Untreated the paralysis can immobilise them altogether and stop them swallowing and breathing.
We gave Tiger brown snake antivenom as well as drugs to prevent any reaction to the antivenom and hospitalised him on a drip to flush the antivenom and venom complexes from his system.

Tiger in a cage

Places to go...people to see...Tiger after 24 hours, impatient to get home. 

Once Tiger was able to swallow his food we could take him off his drip and send him home.  He is still not strong enough to resume his neighbourhood prowls but at least he can relax and be waited on in the manner to which he has become accustomed at home.

Nick the great Siamese Warrior

Nick, my sister’s Siamese, asked me to confirm the goodness of raw rabbit for cats’ teeth and condition.  He lives in country NSW and often brings home feral rabbit (thousands are currently swarming the farm) to supplement the meagre offerings of his staff.

Nick’s favourite stashing place for rabbits and other treasures is under my niece’s bed.  One morning my niece woke up to a crash and snapped on the light in time to see Nick disappearing under the bed with a 6 foot long brown snake hooked to his ear.  After some commotion Nick emerged with his usual elegance leaving the snake writhing under the bed for the staff to clean up.

The family were left in a quandary.  Should they rush him to the vet or not?  In the end they did but the snake must have pushed his fangs through the ear and wasted the venom on the ground because Nick didn’t develop any signs of snake bite.

Most people only know that their cat has been bitten when he becomes paralysed by the venom next day.  Antivenom, intravenous fluids and TLC save most cats from Australian brown snake envenomation.

PS Nick has flawless teeth and a perfect condition score at 12 years of age – from all that raw meat and exercise!  My city cats can only dream of such freedoms and good health.