Penicilin shots

czechsonofagun · Sep 17, 2008

So this is the skinny, one of our sheep needs penicilin shot twice a day for next 8 days. Surprisingly it landed on my To Do list

(Boy that's a skill I never knew I would need in my life

) Anyway, I got pretty good at catching the sheep and shooting her in the butt, but the question are needles. Since I am a cheapskate and old school, I clean up the syringe and the needle and than leave it in medical alcohol till the next shot (about 12 hours).

Is anything wrong with that? I can't really imagine getting infection from a needle sitting that long in an alcohol, but I was wrong at least once in my life

jinman · Sep 17, 2008

I think I would clean the needle with bleach before putting it into alcohol. A UV light sterilizer would also work well, but probably not needed for animals.

Bird · Sep 17, 2008

Probably nothing wrong with it, but it seems to me that disposable needles and syringes are cheap enough that I wouldn't take a chance.

MicroPilot · Sep 17, 2008

I was told by a vet it was OK to do this as long as that needle is only used for that one animal.

The problem would be spreading infection/disease among animals if used for more than one animal.

randy41 · Sep 17, 2008

My wife is a Vet Tech at the VA Tech teaching animal hospital. This is what she has to say about what you are doing Prokop:

Alcohol will only clean them, it will not make the needles sterile. That means you could be causing the injection sites to abscess. Also, once they are used, they become dull so the injection is much more painful for the animals. Can I give you an injection with a contaminated dull needle? Needles are very cheap; get over it.

JESSE1 · Sep 17, 2008

I buy packs of disposable needles at Tractor Supply. If I'm doing mutiple injections I will use the same syringe but always use a new needle. They're cheap, don't take a chance.