# Spider bite?? Any ideas?? This is gross Just to let you know



## Spydra (Mar 30, 2009)

Ok everyone,

I belong to a Horse forum and I have NEVER seen anything like this AND the vets have NO idea what the cause could be but...check this out and your ideas/thoughts/expertise would be appreciated.

I told the gal that i would post in our forum to see if anyone could give an idea what type of spider could have done this. Also, this horse was NOT in any type of field but is a race horse in a stall at the track.

http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.co...bite-what-else-warning-gross-pics-260036.html

Renee


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## codykrr (Mar 30, 2009)

well there could be a couple different things....one, my aunt breed race horses.like million dollar kentucky derby horses and when i asked her she asked if the horse may be diabetic! if so it can cause horses to loose legs from gangrenous sore or infections. and if this is a spider bite...only thing that comes to mind is a brown recluse, have you also considered a snake bite. like a rattler, copperhead, or any other thing that has necroshish venom? my aunt says her first guess is diabetis...but she could be wrong. also ay location information would help narrow down any particular species which could be at fault too. my advice is pack the wound with maggots and wrap it up. then once the dead tissue is gone start treating it.


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## halfwaynowhere (Mar 30, 2009)

While I don't know anything about horses, reading that thread makes me feel like its not a bite, but some internal bacterial infection. The leg kept swelling, and only opened up after being treated by antibiotics. She said she went over the entire leg with a magnifying glass, and found no cuts. If a bite were able to cause this kind of damage, I'm sure it would have been detectable at that early stage. 

Whatever it is, I hope they find a way to treat it, so this horse can live a happy life.


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## Spydra (Mar 30, 2009)

I am trying to find out the location. I will let her know about the diabetic issue and see what I can find out.


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## Widowman10 (Mar 30, 2009)

i don't think that was from a spider bite....

i could ALWAYS be wrong though, but i would almost put money down that it was caused by something else.


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## LeilaNami (Mar 30, 2009)

No native spider I know would have that severe of an effect for a massive animal such as a horse especially in a short amount of time.  If it were a race horse, because of the worth associated with these horses, I'm sure they would have noticed it at the first signs of infection where some dead skin may have started sloughing off.  
Many bacterial infections and some snake venom will do that.  Looking for a wound would do you no good since the infection probably radiated outward and any possible entry site for infection has been rotted off.  Here is an article on bacterial infections involving necrotic tissues in horses and cattle:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Hk...X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA18,M1


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## Nich (Mar 31, 2009)

That wound looks like it took a while to make, then ruptured. Look at the areas around it....poor horse. That is horrid.


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## buthus (Mar 31, 2009)

Spider was hungry enough to eat a horse!  :5:


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## codykrr (Apr 1, 2009)

buthus said:


> Spider was hungry enough to eat a horse!  :5:


dude...thats just not even funny. i love horses and thats just sad....not cool. ....


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## Widowman10 (Apr 1, 2009)

dude, it was a joke. i thought it was funny ;P


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## Kris-wIth-a-K (Apr 1, 2009)

If it is a spider bite and being a horse the venom would spread a little faster due to the increase in mass.  That looks like necrosis has set in and with it being wet all the time/humid/muddy and all the leg is a breeding ground for bacteria off all kinds. The nerve cells would die and rot away just like the skin cells.   If it is a spider bite the only one I can think of would be a decent bite from a brown recluse.  We have then here on out farm too in FL.  Animals vary is spider bites.  My dog was bitten by (assuming) a black widow on her neck and the next two days that thing swelled up to about the size of a soft ball.  I had to drain it about 5 times a day and put her on some meds.  Also the size of the animals too.  To me that horse looks small. The hoofs look small as well as hoof to leg and thai ratio.  I would keep him put up in the barn to prevent any accidents and keep it wrapped with a lot of antibiotics obviously.  

In my own opinion I would count snake bites out since its this bad.  Most snake anti-venom use enzymes and what not from horse blood. plus the area of infection is almost ALWAYS in the middle which is still too high up on the leg for a snake and in the US they still aren't that bad and wouldn't cause necrosis in fact this may be the case.

Kris


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## buthus (Apr 2, 2009)

codykrr said:


> dude...thats just not even funny. i love horses and thats just sad....not cool. ....


Dude... why?...have you seen the horse on the boards at all lately?


Anyway ...I cant say I know jack about horses, but I do know a little bout spiders.  And i gotta tell ya, that spider must have been COMPLETELY out of its mind to even THINK about taking on a horse like that.  Sheer suicide! imho


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## codykrr (Apr 2, 2009)

i wasnt trying to be rude, but you know what most likely going to happen to this horse right? and all because of this problem. ive seen people have a race horse which broke its leg, ripped tendons, or torn muscles, and they just kill it...and were talking million dollar derby horses...and unless they decide to keep it, its just sad. races horses are always thrown out after omething bad goes on with them, because no one can make any money...thats all...sorry if i was rude. just dont like seeing this kinda stuff. after seeing it go on for years.


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## Widowman10 (Apr 2, 2009)

well, hopefully after a bit of treatment they can get this horse better. if it's not race-worthy any more, maybe some horse-loving soul will take it in and give it a good home. 

i still doubt it was a spider btw...


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## codykrr (Apr 2, 2009)

yeah me too. im going to say its caused from diabetis...because my aunt who breeds the million dollar horses said that gangrenous sore on horses isnt uncommon,...like i said though before....id personally pack it down with maggots...wrap it up and feed it anti biotics untill the dead fleash is gone.then treat it as any other serious wound.


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## buthus (Apr 4, 2009)

There are ointments available that help thicken skin ...be sure to save some for the horse.   


...  


Ok...its not about the fact that theres a horse hurtin' and I should feel bad about it.  I love all living creatures ...and of course.. esp those animals that are pretty darned close to us (ok... relatively close) when it comes to smarts, emotions, feeling pain..etc.  
Its just that.. here we are talkin about a _*horse*_ in the True Spider Forum. ..Why?  
Necrotic symptoms with wounds happen for *many* reasons.  
I just went on a hike through some rough scrub and right through tons of poison oak.  Anywhere that the Urushiol entered open wounds (thorns, that slate rock that cut the crap out of my hand, the normal cuts n'scrapes ..etc ), those wounds turned black that evening.  Heck, I thought it must be dust or something... seriously...black. Washing revealed a messed up situation... nasty wounds with dying cells instead of healthy cells starting the healing process.  Its been a battle all week ...im just starting to see semi normal scar tissue. ..now, these are small wounds... but I can see how with neglect and/or added bacteria or more Urushiol or whatnot these wounds _could_ progress into a real problem.   
Im gonna just take a wild shot in the dark and say that ...I bet less than 1% of all necrotic wounds suffered by mammals, from the first shrew thing to modern mankind have been caused by a spider bite.   Hind leg right? Can that horse swap its tail squashing something crawling up its lower leg? If _not_ or unlikely, then come up with a better theory and post this heartache story on *that* forum.  :?


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## burmish101 (Apr 5, 2009)

All the pics of recluse bites I seen on humans were NOTHING compared to that horse, possible copperhead necrosis?


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## Scorpendra (Apr 5, 2009)

i don't want to comb through 12 pages for the complete play-by-play, but i think someone needs to make it known that skin necrosis isn't the same as a brown recluse bite and that a picture of a superficially similar wound doesn't mean that much.


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## LeilaNami (Apr 5, 2009)

Molitor said:


> i don't want to comb through 12 pages for the complete play-by-play, but i think someone needs to make it known that skin necrosis isn't the same as a brown recluse bite and that a picture of a superficially similar wound doesn't mean that much.


Thank you! :worship: :worship:


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## equuskat (Apr 5, 2009)

99.99999% sure that this cannot be a spider bite.  I am also sure that is is not diabetes.  Diabetic horses generally show a variety of symptoms.

More than likely, the horse had a tiny injury, internal infection, or something - perhaps a tiny puncture, which caused massive infection and sloughing of the skin.  I have seen this time of injury many many times, and often the owner never saw an injury present.  

I've been involved with horses up to the international levels of dressage, and never saw or heard of a horse with a documented recluse (or any spider) bite.


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## buthus (Apr 7, 2009)

Molitor said:


> i don't want to comb through 12 pages for the complete play-by-play, but i think someone needs to make it known that skin necrosis isn't the same as a brown recluse bite and that a picture of a superficially similar wound doesn't mean that much.


Ok ...Ill bite. Probably not what you're lookin' for, but whatever...

These wounds in this pic have been healing very well now for about 2 days.  They were much more inflamed, larger and deeper ...constantly filling and scabbing over but like all the wounds im showing here, they remained soft under the scabs allowing external water to just wash away the scab revealing a deeper hole each time til about mid-week, then they started filling back in slowly..2 steps forward, one step back sorta deal.  
The spider that had nothing to do with the wounds is a SoCal collected 
native... very likely _Loxosceles deserta_.





Swear to gosh she walked over to the wounds, turned to me, rolled 3 pair of eyes and gave me that.. "pfffft.  ..thats nothin'" look.  






This wound was way bigger and deeper.  Its kinda swelling up around itself and raising while slowly closing up.  Again, every time scar tissue forms over the wound, it fails to "take" and turns to mush.  Happy its finally shrinking...cause its one of only a few that had me slightly worried.  I could scoop out the mush and the hole was nasty deep.. also this one and a couple others kept turning black even a couple days after all the other wounds started to progress in a positive way.  Anyway...not a wound to write home about, but imho a classic start to a potentially narly necrotic problem.
The spider that had nothing to do with the wound is a Brown Recluse proper .._L.reclusa_.  






This wound never got deep, but it swelled way up and redness formed in lines ..i suppose the problem was spreading through vascular paths.  If it weren't for its obvious scrape wound shape, I bet i could have passed it off as a spider bite wound.
The spider shown in this one ...which, btw, had nothing to do with the wound, nor did she want anything to do with this silly photo shoot for that matter... anyway, shes a fav individual of mine ..a big old _L. laeta_. 






These little wounds appeared a few days after the others.  They were simple hives caused by dealing with a few rats of mine that NEED baths.  When the hives receded, small scars appeared and holes formed just like all the other wounds.  They finally look like normal scars now.
The little Loxo that had nothing to do with these wounds is actually mature ...tiny compared to the other species ive kept.  I collect these in Vegas and I am not sure what specie they are nor will I guess.  
In Vegas, home associations are poisoning thousands of homes every year to kill this spider.  Vegas ground is hard as rock and it floods now and then ...perfect distribution of poison covering the desert valley floor. 
Big contracts for the exterminators ...ya gotta figure their sales rep has a few  images of nasty necrotic wounds ..eh?  :?


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## Craig (Apr 8, 2009)

It almost looks like a methaicillin resistant Staph. aureus wound or something. Did they do a culture of the site and see what bacteria it is? There is no way that is a spider bite. Toxins from Agkistrodon are not even that bad. If it was a venomous bite I would think it would have to have been from a rattlesnake and the horse would be exhibiting systemic effects of the venom and maybe die. 

I would think that is bacterial. It looks bacterial to me anyways. Also full blood work would also help show what is going on. If it was from a pitviper the horse's PT and APTT would be off. I have a few very close friends that are vets. I would love to get their opinions. private message me with as much info from the other vets as you can if you are interested.


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## buthus (Apr 8, 2009)

You people think you can stare at the horse's wound in the pic and make valid guesses to what caused it?  Come on! *Wake up! *  That wound is WAY beyond its initial cause.  Could a spider have "caused" it? ..YES. Could a tick, or some other "bug" have "caused" it? YES.  A snake?...sure.  A splinter, sliver, scratch...a run-in with a chunk of barbed wire ...how bout a boil, a blister?  How 'bout an internal issue?...like a small blood clot?   Very likely even at its beginning, it was a combination of things. 
I met an old snake dude on a hike I went on a few years ago. We started talkin'  about keeping/"handling" crazy creatures and he asked me if I had any "war wounds".  Jokingly I showed him my finger that was freshly bleeding a bit from a tiger pede that I just got done collecting.  He stuck his hand out ...it was nasty..I couldnt believe I somehow missed the fact that he had a chunk of finger missing and what was left of it along with a good amount of his hand was darkened...maroon/purplish ..permanent and nasty.  "Copperhead" he said.  He was handling a snake when he should not have been...got distracted (he was at a party and he was drunk and attempting to impress some females ...seriously thats what he told me..  :clap: ) So...being the party animal AND the expert, tough guy snake dude ...he figured he'd get thru it ...maybe get med attention later. (ahh...boooze...bottled over-confidence!) Well, the venom did its thing, mushing up cell structure and whatnot ...and things started getting BAD very quickly.  Turns out that he got some weird staph or other bacterial issue ...probably from the snake, but who knows..there is fecal matter and all kinds of "crap" everywhere...even on you...all the time. 
His "war wound" started with a snake, continued with something that can be cultured in a dish and ended with the surgeon's scalpel.  Dominoes!

Its a new age for general knowledge.  Its no longer about what one was taught by the people around them, but a phrase imputed into a search engine, a post on a forum, a home-spun web page about grandma's rotting foot wound...etc, etc.  Knowledge is now at the mercy of bots ...constantly changing and working itself out, yet, even the unproven, the misconceptions AND the lies ..all are being reinforced. Sure, posts in this thread (for example) that question and/or dispel any spider connection to the wound shown _help_ dumb down the *literal* link to the ongoing and growing recluse mythology. But, they DO NOT affect the *digital* link and that means now we've added a nasty horse wound to the ever expanding pile o'crap that has become the general knowledge about Recluse spiders and spiders in general.   
Arachnoboards is probably within the top 5 contributors to the problem while it SHOULD be the TOP contributor to the solution.  Why? because its big (loads of hits all day long), its reinforced by TONS of keywords within its text and the links posted to and from within it.  Remember...the bots are in control and they aint fact checkers. ..they are popularity enforcers.   
Suppose ill get in trouble here, but.. I gotta say it.  If Arachnoboard's admin/mods took *half *the time they spend trying to decide if d***ed meant "darned" or "damned"  defending the creatures they care about along w/the general knowledge/science surrounding those creatures ...they'd actually have something TRULY noble and worthwhile to do.  
But clowns are to be ignored, so we will continue chucking water balloons at tanks hoping at the very least someone will get the joke and realize that it aint no joke.  :2: :?


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## Kuronishen (Apr 8, 2009)

I put my money on a necrosis or bacterial infection, not from a spider bite (That's pretty bad even by recluse standards).  Cottonmouth snakes can cause necrosis/gangrene with their bites, perhaps that might be what happened? :?


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## buthus (Apr 8, 2009)

> (That's pretty bad even by recluse standards)


aaahhhh! ...now THATS where the problem begins ...but it never seems to end. :clap:


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## Craig (Apr 9, 2009)

I have really significant veterinary experience. I was stating facts. I also went to school and did pre med/vet (Zoology). I have been working with animals in a clinical setting for over 7 years! I was stating scientific facts relevant to the case. 

I also study various toxins and their effects. I am especially interested in reptile and invert. toxins. I was not pulling information out of my backside or google for that matter!!!!!!


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## Galapoheros (Apr 9, 2009)

It's a guessing game at this point.  I would think a horse, with the thick skin and hair, ...not a spider bite, esp. a recluse.  My first thought was rattlesnake bite.


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## LeilaNami (Apr 9, 2009)

Galapoheros said:


> It's a guessing game at this point.  I would think a horse, with the thick skin and hair, ...not a spider bite, esp. a recluse.  My first thought was rattlesnake bite.


Definitely.  As I said before, any possible entry wound for infection (which is what I'm leaning towards) or venom would have been sloughed off long ago.


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## buthus (Apr 11, 2009)

Craig said:


> I have really significant veterinary experience. I was stating facts. I also went to school and did pre med/vet (Zoology). I have been working with animals in a clinical setting for over 7 years! I was stating scientific facts relevant to the case.
> 
> I also study various toxins and their effects. I am especially interested in reptile and invert. toxins. I was not pulling information out of my backside or google for that matter!!!!!!


Trying to figure out why i haven't felt like responding til now..i mean, you seem to be the type of person i and i'd hope others like me would want "on the case". Maybe its the "!!!!+" cause the last time I saw that it was quad fs and the conductor was saying "play super loud with a whining voice."

Check out Venom's posts, they slice through MY mindset like a dagger w/a little drip on the tip.


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## Tarantulysis (Apr 12, 2009)

IMHO,most bites contributed to spiders turn out to be some kind of 'runaway' bacterial infection.Keep in mind were dealing with a horse.Its not likly any spider short of a tarantula would be able to get a bite on the thick hide. my vote not a spider,mabey a snake mabey a bad infection(bot flies?).


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## LeilaNami (Apr 13, 2009)

Tarantulysis said:


> IMHO,most bites contributed to spiders turn out to be some kind of 'runaway' bacterial infection.Keep in mind were dealing with a horse.Its not likly any spider short of a tarantula would be able to get a bite on the thick hide. my vote not a spider,mabey a snake mabey a bad infection(bot flies?).


Well with botflies, the botfly itself will usually lay eggs in the knees of the horse and cause bumps to raise on the skin.  There could be a secondary infection but once again that leads back to bacteria.  Also if you read the thread where those pictures are from, the infection starts as "quarter-sized holes" and then the necrosis starts.  New holes started appearing as well.  Animals would be ruled out then because I seriously doubt one would be continuously biting the horse.


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