HUGE abscess? Help!

Floyd has an enormous lump on the right side of his neck! I don't know how I possibly could have missed seeing it before! There is no heat, no wound, no fur loss, no loss of mobility, and it doesn't appear painful. There is no involvement of lymph nodes in neck or arm pit. It feels very round and quite firm, but I think it is filled with fluid. His weight is good, appetite okay- he had lots of pellets left over this morning, but he does that occasionally anyway.

I plan to isolate him for now. My concern is pasturella- he went to the show 9 days ago. Is incubation that short? Can it progress so rapidly? I don't know if I should aspirate it or leave it alone.

Oh sis, that looks terrible! Poor Floyd...I would definitely isolate him, just to be on the safe side. You really should isolate any animal that goes to a show as soon as you come back anyway. Who knows what they could be exposed to?

I would lance it, put on hot compresses and then clean out as much of the gunk as possible with hydrogen peroxide. I know peroxide is not preferred, but it has the advantage of liquifying the pus, which is usually very thick in rabbit abscesses. We found that using a syringe (no needle) let us get the peroxide into the abscess. It did not appear painful to the rabbit. I suggest a triple antibiotic ointment on the wound and following up with Penicillin G with Procaine, subcutaneously for several days. You will have to calculate the dosage... There is some info in old threads. I'll see what I can find and post the links. Our Alive had an abscess last summer and with treatment made a full recovery.

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We just has one on our Flemish giant a month ago and it was located in her dewlap. What we did was wrap in in a towel. Lanced it and we squeezed all the junk out. Then we use used hydrogen peroxide to rinse it out. Once we got all the pus out we put her back in her cage. Every other day we would have to relance it, continue to get any remaining pus out and re clean it with hydrogen peroxide. I can now say her dewlap is completely normal except with scar tissue. I had to go thro her cage and make sure there was no sharp things sticking out and trim her nails. It will take about a month to heal once you lance and clean it.

Oh my gosh! Poor Floyd! I would lance it, like Maggie and Cmabb said. Good luck, I hope he will be okay!

if it's thick and gooey, probably not pasturella, if it's liquidy then probably it is. (or so I've been told) I've never had to deal with an abscess but you do need to lance, flush, and keep it clean AND you need to ensure that it heals from the inside out.

Be carefull!! he was at a show nine days ago? this lump show up suddenly? I ask because-- sometimes, a blood vessel injury, from getting hit, or bumped will result in a 'slow bleed'- If you aspirate some of the fluid first, and there is a tinge of red in it-- LEAVE IT BE!!! AS long as he can eat, drink and breathe, best to let nature run it's course.My ex kneed a former dog of mine, created a fast lump under the jaw, and I had to get the dog some surgery to reduce the squeezing on his airway-- but the blood had pooled and clotted around the broken vein,acting like a bandage to prevent further bleeding. Don;t just assume something that size, showing up suddenly, is an abcess-- abscesses tend to start small and grow a bit less quickly!

MamaSheepdog":2hlhfjjf said:

I don't know if I should aspirate it or leave it alone.

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Frosted Rabbits":2hlhfjjf said:

If you aspirate some of the fluid first, and there is a tinge of red in it-- LEAVE IT BE!!!

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ladysown":2hlhfjjf said:

if it's thick and gooey, probably not pasturella, if it's liquidy then probably it is.

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Abscesses don't scare me, I've treated a ton of them successfully and quickly in every case- but this hasn't behaved like an abscess. I've never seen one anywhere near this size, and there is no heat, fur loss, wound, etc.

I think I have a large gauge needle, so I will aspirate first. Floyd is our herd sire and we are very attached to him, but if it is anything other than bloody fluid, I am going to cull him. I don't want to take any chances if it is infectious. He has sired 7 litters, with 3 on the ground now. I have two other proven bucks out of him, and all of my other bucks are his as well, with the exception of some litters still in the nest.

I don't have an isolation ward yet, and I wasn't too worried about them being highly susceptible to infection- their breeder is a judge as well as a competitor, so I felt the line had a lot of prior exposure. I'll spray all the cages down with alcohol to be safe.

:? On the bright side at least I'm getting a hospital wing set up.

I hope it is something simple. He is a beautiful rabbit. I am going to cull Ninny. I am not looking forward to it. Hope all goes well.

Shoot, here
http://www.nustock.com/
I lance it, use hydrogen peroxide to de pus it and then, once it's empty, I give a hefty dose of this stuff
it's basically 3% pine oil, and 73% sulfur flour, with enough mineral oil to let it flow

It dries it out, and almost mummifies the dead tissue. no going back and re lancing (you should leave a wick of steril 2x2 to keep it open)
with Penicillin they heal quickly.

it may be obvious...but lance it on the "down-hill" side. abscesses can be caused by the slightest things. Or, for no apperant reason at all.

last week, i lanced what was an obvious abscess on the hind foot of one of my better does. wrong....it turned out to be a fatty tumor. i expressed the material and the doe is doing just fine now.

I am wondering if it might be injury related, and filled with sabasious fluid?

Poor little guy i hope you are able to get him all better!

Thank you to everybody that has commented so far- I appreciate your input. If I do lance it and try to express the pus, I will use hydrogen peroxide to loosen it up, do a final rinse with a weak betadine solution, and squirt some Nu-stock in it (Great stuff, huh, Jack? I've not used it for abscesses before, but it did get rid of Hub's athlete's foot!), and give him penicillin injections.

I've been up since 4am, and have been researching pastuerella and abscesses, and the prognosis is pretty poor, I think. Unlike dog and cat abscesses, which is where my expertise in the field lies, rabbits form a very thick pus with a toothpaste like consistency... one veterinary site showed what appeared to be a solid lump of it from a pastuerella case. The incidence of recurrence is very high, since the matter is very hard to remove, and there may be a finger-like tract leading elsewhere also filled with pus, and often the tissue of the abscess "wall" is infected and needs to be excised. Somehow I doubt Floyd will let me excise the walls of the abscess. (Ouch!!!)

Another factor is of great concern to me- in my research this morning, I found that pasteurella commonly presents as thick white mucous from the nose. When I picked up the rabbits initially, I noticed a very small blob of white mucous by his nostril. The breeder had traveled several hundred miles to our exchange point, and I had traveled 150 miles + myself... she said she would replace him if he died. He never progressed beyond that point, and after 2 days I never saw another symptom... but I fear the infection went dormant, and the stress of the show has caused this flare up. I realize that pasteurella is commonly believed to be carried by all rabbits, or at the least that all rabbitries have been exposed... so I am not laying blame anywhere... but it seems the best protocol is to cull any rabbits that succumb to infection and only breed those that show a strong resistance to it.

I was going to aspirate it yesterday afternoon to see if it was bloody fluid, and if not I intended to cull him. I met with great resistance from Hubs and the pups. Floyd is Hub's rabbit, and he and the pups were shocked that I could be so hasty, and not even "give him a chance". <Sigh... I am an ogre.> It was getting late at that point and I was afraid I'd lose light before I could finish, so Floyd is still safe for now. I didn't aspirate it because his isolation cage wasn't ready, and I didn't want to possibly spread infection.

I continued working on his hospital cage- the floor wire had two patches of rust to be scrubbed off, and the cage is going in the chicken run, so I had to figure a way to hang it safely, and protect it from wind and rain/snow. (We are supposed to get rain today.) It's hung now, but I still need to finish up with the protective panels. It got too dark to work, and my "trouble light" seems to have died. It is still pitch black out, and the wind is howling, or I would be out there already.

I am still leaning toward culling him to be safe... when the rest of the "pack" wake up we will discuss it further. I would also appreciate further comments from all of you regarding the decision to cull.

Thanks, everyone.

when talking about pasturella with the family point out how it can decimate a herd quickly should it become virulent. AND THAT is not fun to watch or partake it.

AND THAT is precisely when folks say cull don't treat. It is difficult and expensive to treat and generally not worth the price of the rabbit.

The fact is, if he has been carrying pasturella the potential is that your herd may already be infected and you'll need to be culling for white snot whenever you see it. In time your herd will build a resistance to it and you'll be fine.

If it was just the abscess, I would have recommended lancing, draining, and letting it heal up, but knowing that he has white snot going on...I would definitely cull him. I'm really sorry

I explained the danger to them, but they still looked at me like I had two heads... especially Hubs. I think the problem is that up until this point, this has been more of a petting zoo than a producing ranch, and they are having a hard time dealing with the realities of production animals. They haven't had a problem with slaughtering in general, but we are all attached to Black Floyd. If it was one of our numerous other (unnamed) rabbits it would be a wholly different situation.

I haven't had one snotty nose ever, so hopefully I wont see it now. Fingers crossed.

Cait- no white snot since last April... but it could still be pasteurella.

Hmm. I'd say vet then maybe, because I've heard of discharge from abscesses near the head being squished out through the nose...I cry "vet" more often then a lot of other breeders though.

Sis, the only thing I can think to say is I am sorry. When you aspirate it, if it IS a pasteurella like abcess, then I would advise you to cull him immediately. Tell my BIL and the pups that their Auntie Shae lost her ENTIRE HERD (24 rabbits) because I was too attached to cull one animal immediately. I tried isolating, treating, watching, waiting for that illusive "resistance" to appear....it never did. Every single one eventually showed pasteurella symptoms and had to be dispatched. It is just not worth it for a single animal, unless you want to isolate, treat the abcess and then "pet" him out to another home. Don't keep him at your place because you could easily cross contaminate the rest of your herd...so sorry. {{{hugs}}}

Thanks, Sis.

I don't even want to aspirate it anywhere near the other rabbits. I personally am leaning toward culling him without aspirating and then dissecting the abscess in an area that can be sterilized.

If it is just a localized infection, and there are no other lesions elsewhere, and he looks normal otherwise, can he be used for meat for us or the animals?