Abscess on 2 1/2 week pregnant doe!

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flemishr2cool

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Thought I would share this with everyone here, abscess are kinda common on the Big old Flemish Giant bucks so I'm not new to them but this is the first time i've ever had one on a doe. hattie is a one year old 2 1/2 weeks pregnant English Lop. Her whole problem started last Wednesday when she escaped from her cage and spend the night on the garage floor and in the yard. When we found her in the morning she had very runny sore eyes, we think it was from her running around on the dirty floors. So we started treating her eyes with an antibacterial ointment and the eyes were slowly but surely getting better.

Last Saturday I noticed a very hard small lump right under her eye, but the vet was closed until Monday so I just watched it and by Monday the lump was quite large and she had another one under her chin. I'm interning at the vet clinic so I brought her in and vet check teeth which looked okay and then aspirated the lump and drew up pus. he had to aspirate pretty far down but he was sure it wasn't a tooth abscess and we decided the abscess must of been a secondary infection because of the eye infection. (I HATE PASTURELLA :mad:) So he lanced it with a 1/8" incision (if that) but he could not squeeze any of the pus out. So he sent her home with Baytril for a week (We want her off of it when she goes into labor) and we were supposed to put a warm compress on it try and get it drain on its own.

Well Today it still had not drained and was getting bigger so we brought her in to have it lanced some more. Vet made three 1/8" and we managed to squeeze a great deal of the pus out. As a vet tech student me and three other vet techs stood around and ohh and awwed while we squeezed most of it out. The pus was pretty solid, and there was little blood.

We got most of out but there was one spot that was still too solid so we have to warm compress it again and see if it drains more. Hatti hasn't much of an appetite but I can tell her face feels slightly better now. I will try to get a picture of it up tonight...we bought a new digital camera so I'm still trying to figure out how it works :)
 
Ugh. I hate abscesses! I wonder, could you use injected bicillin while she's nursing? That's been found to work really well on head abscesses. I'd be worried about it coming back while she's nursing after only a week on Baytril.
 
Bicillin is a form of penicillin. It is injected, so it does not cause the severe GI problems that oral penicillin does. It's a somewhat newer treatment but it's been pretty successful with treating abscesses that can't be removed surgically. Baytril is often given along with it.

There's some good articles on it in the Abscess topic of Rabbit Health References.
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=11791&forum_id=10

Here's some in particular.
http://www.ontariorabbits.org/health/healthinfo1.1.htm
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/jawabscess.html

And several more here:
http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rabrefs.html#abs

Not all vets are familiar with this as it is relatively new, so it might help to print off some articles to give to your vet if you are interested. I have no idea how this would affect her babies, though.
 
Are you giving the baytril orally or by injection. If she's not eating and your doing it orally I'd suggest switching to the injectable version - your vet should be able to show you how to administer it.

A pro biotic will help her tummy get going and it might be worth trying a painkiller too if the vet know's of a safe one. Metacam is common but I'm not sure whether that's suitable for pregnancy. The abcess on her face could be causing discomfort that's putting her off eating.




 
No Worries guys, I didn't mention it but I'm a vet tech and I raise Flemish Giants, a breed that is known to get neck abscess so I'm almost experienced at this. We're experiementing with Metacam on another rabbit with a sore leg. But I'm not willing to just start a pregnant doe on it. Its not the abscess thats stopping her from eating. Its the stress of having to be held down while we try and drain the abscess, she's also had to be moved inside because of flies so new environment and being handled means unhappy bunny! The good news is that the swelling in her face has gone down so it looks like most of the pus is gone. For awhile we thought we may have to put a drain in but we've been really working on softening it up and squeezing it out so it looks like all our work has paid off. still working on that picture...I'll have a series of them to show what it first looked like and how it has progressed.
 
Is it the one under the chin you've been working on?

Is it the kind with a million little tentacles thatmay needsurgery? Is there a problem having surgery on a pregnant doe? Is it the kind you can use beads in? Has the injection (Baytril or Bicillin) been discussed?

Questions, questions, questions. . . I'm petrified of abscesses, will be watching to see how it goes.

Good luck with her.

sas
 
She had the litter yesterday, but she lost it. Not really in the mood to discuss that :X

But we did put her under today with iso to check it out, and vet thinks it may be a bone abscess. So instead of baytril we are using an antibiotic that can be absorbed in the bone, we're not sure if pasturella is sensitive to it but this may be a good shot at getting it treated if it does work. Will keep everyone updated
 
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