Dosage for penicillin for treating VD

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ladysown

ladysown

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Got a doe in that someone gave me. She's pretty and very nicely tempered. I want to give her a good home. BUT FIRST>>> I need to make sure she is well. I strongly suspect she has VD. And I know that is easy to treat.

Picked up some penicillin to treat her.

It's Pen G procaine.
Label says penicillin G Procaine 300000 IU per ml.

She's a 3 lb rabbit.

How much do I give her? And what sort of treatment schedule. I"ve searched on-line and found a variety of answers from every day for three weeks. To every other day for a month. I'd rather have some accuracy.

I know to give her LOTS of hay, and to support her tummy using probiotics.
 
thank you Devon. :)

I assume I can give this sub-q (the label says I can) and most sites I went to said that sub-q is the best way to administer it. Am I correct?
 
I was told for Pen G that it is 20K-60K IU/kg depending on what it is for and that's what I found in the rabbit med sites:

http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rx/drugcalc.html

http://www.medirabbit.com/Safe_medicati ... iotics.htm

A 3lb rabbit is 1.36kg I believe so if you wanted to do a max dose of 60K IU/kg, then isn't it 1.36kg X 60K= 81600 IU? If there is 300K per ML/ then 81600/300000= ~0.3 ml= 0.3cc. I am really confused because that would be a huge difference from 0.8cc/lb= 2.4cc for a 3lb rabbit. It said on the bottle for livestock like cattle/swine that it is 1cc per 100lbs, so 2.4cc for a rabbit sounds like a lot, but if I am mistaken please let me know. I am still learning about rabbit meds as best I can.

Thanks!

Lauren
 
come to think of it, I think you have a point. when I do the math 2.4 cc seems a lot to give a bunny.

I know the vet tech where I got my needles from said rabbits only need a wee bit so she gave me small syringes so I could be really accurate.

Okay...let's think about this a bit then. Don't want to kill her trying to cure her. She's a super sweet rabbit and I'd like to get her better because finding her a new home should be really easy. :)
 
My numbers came from Dr. Jay Hreiz he writes the medical articles for Domestic Rabbit (ARBA magazine), he also does medical seminars at conventions too.
 
Hi again,

I really respect Dr. Hreiz and I love his articles in DR, but I don't know him personally. If you do can you shoot him an e-mail and ask him about it? I wonder if he could add something about why he recommends a much higher dose than the literature, you know? The only reason I worry is because I recently gave Pen G to some of my rabbits at the upper end of the recommended dose SC and it caused a major GI issue. I don't know if it was just something with that rabbit, but I was reading about it online and several sites said that the larger amount could have been responsible. :(

In the meantime, 54431 IU/300,000 IU/kg = 0.18 = ~0.2cc

Thanks!

Lauren
 
Hi Qadoshyah,

Can you please tell me why SC is not a good option? From what I read on all the rabbit medicine links, they recommended Pen G SC or IM, but it didn't show preference over one or the other so I had been doing SC when I used it. I wonder if that could have had anything to do with the GI upset in the one of mine that did poorly with it.

Thanks for your help!

Lauren
 
talked with the vet tech/surgery assistant at the local vet clinic.

She said .2-.3 daily for one week should clear up the problem. She also said that SubQ was what I should be doing. She looked it up for me and everything. :)

She said long acting penicillin is better than PenG, but that PenG will do the job.

I learned that 25 gauge I can't get the penicillin through as some the penicillin bits get all stopped up, but 22 gauge works just fine.
_____

Should mention this vet clinic does not have a rabbit vet. They predominately service large animals and the local town small critters. For serious rabbit issues they advise going to the local big city. But they are willing to work with people to solve issues. I appreciate them for that. They didn't even need to see the rabbit. :)
 
HendricksHearth":2a6c2q8p said:
Hi again,

I really respect Dr. Hreiz and I love his articles in DR, but I don't know him personally. If you do can you shoot him an e-mail and ask him about it? I wonder if he could add something about why he recommends a much higher dose than the literature, you know? The only reason I worry is because I recently gave Pen G to some of my rabbits at the upper end of the recommended dose SC and it caused a major GI issue. I don't know if it was just something with that rabbit, but I was reading about it online and several sites said that the larger amount could have been responsible. :(

In the meantime, 54431 IU/300,000 IU/kg = 0.18 = ~0.2cc

Thanks!

Lauren
Click to expand...
Hi Lauren. Thanks for the conversions. I'm new to this stuff and would like an explanation of your math to come up with ~0.2cc. (0.18kg = ~0.2cc) Do you have a chart of Mass (weight) values for specific drugs to arrive at the Volume? Did you find this info. on the bottle of Pen-G? Thanks again - I'm trying to learn.
 
Hi there,

Sure thing- it says on the bottle, "Injectable antibiotic in aqueous suspension 300,000 units/mL."

All I did was take the weight of the rabbit (3lbs) and divide by 2.2 to come up with 1.3 kg. Then I looked at the charts for the rabbit medicine links I provided above and if 54431 IU is the average estimated dose is for a rabbit that size. Because I already knew there were 300,000 units per mL of the antibiotic, I just divided it by the units per mL in the bottle to come up with how much to give. So if 54,431 IU/300,000 IU/kg, then the answer is 0.18mL, then I just rounded to 0.2mL for practical injection purposes (most people I have come across have access to 3cc syringes), which is the same as 0.2cc.

It sounds like some vets may dose much higher though, like 12X the amount I came up with, so I am clueless beyond this point. If you aren't sure, I'd highly suggest you verify numbers/med with a rabbit experienced vet to be on the safe side. :)

Best of luck,

Lauren
 
Hmmmmm, I see why I was confused. Please check your units in your formula 54,431 IU/300,000 IU/kg as I'm pretty sure you mean to say 54,431 IU/300,000 IU/ml. Please don't think I'm criticizing - I'm just trying to understand how to do these things right. Thanks very much.
 
Sorry for any confusion, I was double-checking my numbers when I replied to you and didn't even notice I copied the unit that typed wrong the first time all over again.

Thanks!

Lauren
 

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