Ahh! Momma Rabbit Has Golf Ball Sized Abcess!

[Graceful Meadows]

I just got this girl 2-3 months ago and bred her immediately. She has 4 kits on her at 5 weeks old. The abcess is golf ball sized and a little red in the center, though it doesn't seem to be hurting her. I have never had any problems like this before. What should I do? I have heard about lancing it, but it sounds really hard and like it takes a lot of antibiotics. I got her for $85 to be a momma and a show girl, is her career over?

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Hi Graceful Meadows,

where is the abscess? Is it near her teats? If so it could be mastitis.

My Sistah, OneAcreFarm, had a doe that had an abscess caused by mastitis. Here is her post about it:

little-mama-has-mastitis-t6496.html

If it is somewhere else and she didn't suffer an injury in that location, I would suspect Pasteurella.

I had to cull my original herd buck due to an enormous one he developed between his front leg and his rib cage. Here is the post I did on the necropsy if you would like to see it:

floyd-is-finished-graphic-necropsy-photos-t5919.html

 

[Miss M]

Here is a post I did about draining an abscess (with graphic photos): burying-nibbles-a-little-furry-friend-graphic-t13922.html

As you can tell from the title, we had to put the rabbit down anyway.

We recently drained an abscess from a breeder of ours... she had gotten a scratch or a bite on her tummy, and it abscessed. It was healing up great, but she quit eating due to the antibiotics. We lost her to gut stasis. I didn't realize at the time that the not eating was that bad an issue if it went on more than a couple of days.