Rat with tumor or infection kinda graphic pics

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

Ahh thanks so much B! I will convey this to the vet tomarrow and hopefully he will be able to help her in some way. Is there anything I can do for her tonight? Would a warm bath help?


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You could try some diluted iodine or betadine on it but she's NOT going to like it. While it looks nasty and disgusting I haven't had a single female that experienced this get sick or die. They keep it clean themselves and it seems to heal up. I've experienced this three times total in a year. Two of the females are still great moms. One of them actually has a litter right now.

Regards,

B

Amazing. Thanks that is quite the load off of my mind. And that makes sense as well. It looks so gross though. Yuk. I hate seeing something like this on one of my animals. I'll still bring her tomarrow and maybe we can get her held down and he can knick it a bit so it will drain. I'll do a warm bath with beta too tonight. Thanks so much!


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It is either a tumor which has broken the skin (not uncommon) or mastitis. If it is soft, squishy and warm, then it is mastitis (an infection of the milk gland) if it is solid and hard then it's almost certainly cancer.

If you have the stomach to cut it open when you put the rat down, you'll be able to tell for sure. If its mastitis then it will be full of blood and pus. If it's cancer it will look like a big fleshy lump.


EDIT - If you're going to try and save her, it will only work if it's mastitis, and not cancer. So find out first. You can knick it with a scalpel or probe it with a needle and if you get pus, then you can proceed to drain and clean it, if you get only blood then again, it's probably cancer.

Thanks Rhas!
That's why we're still keeping the appt tomarrow. I understand that folks can only do so much over the Internet. Its not solid that's for sure pretty squishy. So I guess that's a good thing. But I just really don't want to be the one knicking it. I have a stomach but..., I'm not the best with things like this. I'll leave that for the vet. I'll update the thread tomarrow after the appt.


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Yeah if it's squishy and warm it's almost guaranteed to be an infection.
Let us know what happens at the vet. That thing is going to need a lot lot lot of cleaning if it gets drained. At least 2 times a day with salt water washes and betadine to clean it up. Definitely ask the vet for some liquid baytril, it's much better than neosporin, it's more liquidy and will get into all the areas it needs to, before the rats clean it all off.

I had a female breeder that had the same issue a few months ago. She had it a lot worse and was definitely mastitis but she had it from front to back legs. She did heal up ok but was useless as a breeder female and very aggressive. x.x Don't think I'll pull all rat pups again until I'm either sure they're weaned or leave a few behind to help prevent this again.

Ugh that was a yucky vet trip. My vet agreed that the female had a mastitis. We knicked it open and drained it. Ugh super yucky stuff came out with that one. We will be doing the salt washes and he agreed that baytril would be good to use and gave us a vial. So.... We've got her in her own clean 10 gallon with shredded newspaper and a towel in the corner to help catch the drainage. Ugh yuck.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

Ugh that was a yucky vet trip. My vet agreed that the female had a mastitis. We knicked it open and drained it. Ugh super yucky stuff came out with that one. We will be doing the salt washes and he agreed that baytril would be good to use and gave us a vial. So.... We've got her in her own clean 10 gallon with shredded newspaper and a towel in the corner to help catch the drainage. Ugh yuck.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

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MMMMM YUMMMMMMMYYYY!!!

lol glad to hear shes doing better. Ive never heard of that before. Can it affect any mammal?

I would guess that it can affect any lactating mammal. It was most likely when I gave her babies to a larger female whom had a smaller litter. Then I just put her back in rotation. Whoops I guess I won't be doing that again. Either way well see how this goes.


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A trick I've figured out to help prevent this (knock on wood I haven't had an issue in awhile) is that if I feed off young rats I put the mom with another mom to help out. This usually relieves the pressue and lets their body slow production. So far this has worked well and it has been awhile since I've had an issue like this. The few cases I've had were almost always when I was feeding whole litters of pups or younger off.

Regards,

B