needles and shots

[goat lady]

I have talked to a couple of different goat people in my area about this, and was wanting some more opinions. When giving shots of the same medicine do you use the same needle for more than one goat? Or a different needle for each goat?

Secondly, if you use one needle per goat; can you put different medicines in the same needle for that goat? Example: can I give cdt shots to a goat with one needle and use the same needle on that goat if I have to give the goat a shot of something else if the goat get sick? Thanks and I hope this made sense.

 

[Mini-M Ranch]

The only time I reuse a needle is to draw fluid into a syringe that I am going to use orally. I use the same needle to draw all the syringes full of Ivermectin for oral deworming. Other than that, I use one needle, one time.

I guess I hadn't ever thought of doing it any other way.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I don't have too many animals, and needles are cheap, so I typically use new needles every time. If I'm going to be giving everyone CD/T for example, I'll put a clean needle in the vial and leave it there and draw from that needle. Then I'll switch to a different needle to give the shot. Does that make sense? That way there's only 1 hole into the vial, and I'm not repeatedly poking it.

On farms where I've worked in the past, we've reused needles. For example, on the sheep farm, we'd use 1 needle in the vial, and one needle to give many CD/T or whatever shot we were giving. We'd switch to a new needle when the needle we were using got dull. I've worked on a dairy farm where we re-use needles as well. Typically these were closed herds.

 

[Roll farms]

I use one needle, one time...I read somewhere that they get dull after use and 'hurt' the animal if used more than once, and like someone else said, needles are cheap, so....One needle, one critter.

I do wash / reuse syringes, though....I soak them in alcohol overnight, let them airdry, then put them back together and store them until needed again.

 

[goat lady]

Thanks everyone. Have a great rest of the week.