Mastasis?

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Chinniechantel

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I have a girl who just had a baby about a week ago. We just noticed tonight and would have noticed sooner if it had been there long, that she has a huge gash on her stomach near her breast, and what looks like the start to an infection, or a swollen lump. It looks pretty irritated, and painful! She is nursing, so I don't want to give her pain meds but we have a vet app. in the morning. It seems like she has scratched herself because there is no way the 4 day old baby could have caused a 2 inch gash in her breast and dad had been away for a month now. She has nothing in her cage that could do that.

Has anyone seen anything like this? I have only read about mastasis, and that can really be my only guess...but she is feeding the baby fine and the baby is gaining regularily. It is only one nipple infected that I can see. I gave her a warm compress and will have to wait and see what the vet says.

Are sulfa antibiotics ok for nursing moms? I thought so but now can't be sure. I guess I will need to hopefully find another mom to put the baby in with if she is prescriped baytril or gets worse. Oh my poor Oreo!

Oh the joys of breeding!
 
I hope everything goes well for you. I have never heard of such a thing! That would really freak me out..
 
I don't have any suggestions other than to just keep it clean. Please let us know what the vet says so that they rest of us will know if we ever encounter this problem too.
 
Poor Oreo was the same this morning. My husband is bringing her and the baby to the vet right now to see what is going on. Please send good wishes that everything will be ok. I am at work and just sick about her. I am holding back tears....
 
Ohhh... so sorry to hear about Oreo. Sending best wishes your way that she is going to be okay!
 
Well, no good news. She does not know if it is a tumor, or an infection. And cannot do anything without an operation, which she won't do until the baby is weaned. She says there are no safe antibiotics for nursing moms, so anything we can do has to wait.

Is this true? I really though sulfa drugs were ok...or maybe even Cipro if it came down to it. I can't imagine letting her go untreated for 5 more weeks- the baby is a week old today. And if it is an infection, how do I know she will make it that long? I am starting to become upset with my vet, this does not seem to make much sense.
 
Oh, you so need a better vet. A fine needle aspiration can tell if it's an abscess and that can be done usually with nothing but the tiniest whiff of gas, if that.

Most antibiotics pass through breast milk, but some are safer than others. Definately need a new vet.
 
When I had some problems going on with the herd, I treated the ENTIRE herd with Bactrim (sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim) incase it was something that would be fixed my antibotics. This includes pregnant moms, moms nursing, and young kits who were just weaned. The only ill effects I noticed was that some of the kits did not turn out to be what they could have been(Example: stayed small).

Do you have blue-kote? I had something similar happen a few months back, she didn't have a litter in almost two years so I didn't think it was Mastasis. I found a screw in the cage on a wooden shelf, and thought maybe she got caught on that--and ripped her tummy open. It was a fairly large wound, and pretty deep. I kept it clean, added some betadine to it, and then used blue-kote. The biggest problem I had was keeping HER from biting at it. I placed a dust bath in her cage at all times, kept the blue kote on it--and it eventually cleared up on its own. I did give her some Bactrim incase it was infected. It took awhile for her it to clear up though, as she wanted to rip it open constantly.
 
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I am SO angry with this vet. I spoke with her on the phone on my lunch break, and she said surgery would be $100 to see what it is, then $200 more to remove a tumor if there is one. And, that means something could go wrong. And she won't give antibiotics without doing a culture to know what it is, and she will only do that with surgery (gas and all) and that just does not make sense to me. I have a name of another supposedly good vet I think I will try. My vet is usually great, but she dropped the ball on this one completely. There are only a few antibiotics that chins can have, I mean come on, you don't need a culture to start one.

I do have blu kote and will be doing that today. I didn't want to do it before the vet so she could see what was going on. I think there was a cut or infection or something and she just ripped it apart- chins really can do a number on themselves. She is not losing weight, her fecals came back fine, so that is good. I hope this new vet can do the needle thing HM suggested, that seems like what I figured they could do- I mean an infection will feel a whole lot different than a tumor, right?

I am just fuming and so scared for my girl. She looks bright eyed and bushy tailed though, so that is good. Baby is doing fine, she found a nipple not in the mix of scars and masses. Poor thing!

ETA- Megan- I know other people who have treated their whole herd with bactrim as well, so that is why I really though some antibiotics, ecspecially sulfa ones, are ok for nursing moms if really needed.
 
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OMG my heart sank when I seen this!!! Boy that brought back some sad memories for me. My avater "Chinny" died from this. Weird thing is is that it moves fast. At least in my case. Once i seen her not acting right and felt a limp I immediately took her to my local vet. He put her on baytil and sent her home. I didn't feel comfortable with his decission (she was like a child to me) so the next day we took her to a chinny specialist in UT and spent about 700. on testing (which I told the vet I would pay anything for her, just make her better) Vet said she was septic but she gave her a 70% of living. We took her home and she never fully came back around from the anesthia and I called and called and called the vet and they said it was normal cause they had given her morphine and she would be groggy. They told me to leave her alone cause it was painful. She said to just set her in her hut and leave her be. Well long story short, she peed herself at night and was soaked come morning. The vet had left town and her vet techs said she was fine just dry her off. Well i made a appt with my local vet again which was almost at his closing time and he said she was in shock and I should put her down. I thought he was full of it (being the specialist gave her such high odds of making it) (plus I had called numerous times) so I took her home. She died within a 1/2 hr of coming home. It was sad.
So yeah the slit is normal. It is actually trying to heal itself. The babies didn't do it. If it goes septic there is a great chance she won't survive. The vet had her on baytril, metacam, and flagyl for mine. I don't know what the sulfer anti's are but if you have baytril, I would definately start it. Poor baby. Good luck. Mine left behind two two week old babies which I hand fed and they survived.




Chinniechantel said:
I have a girl who just had a baby about a week ago. We just noticed tonight and would have noticed sooner if it had been there long, that she has a huge gash on her stomach near her breast, and what looks like the start to an infection, or a swollen lump. It looks pretty irritated, and painful! She is nursing, so I don't want to give her pain meds but we have a vet app. in the morning. It seems like she has scratched herself because there is no way the 4 day old baby could have caused a 2 inch gash in her breast and dad had been away for a month now. She has nothing in her cage that could do that.

Has anyone seen anything like this? I have only read about mastasis, and that can really be my only guess...but she is feeding the baby fine and the baby is gaining regularily. It is only one nipple infected that I can see. I gave her a warm compress and will have to wait and see what the vet says.

Are sulfa antibiotics ok for nursing moms? I thought so but now can't be sure. I guess I will need to hopefully find another mom to put the baby in with if she is prescriped baytril or gets worse. Oh my poor Oreo!

Oh the joys of breeding!
Click to expand...
 
Oh and one more thing, I was also concerned about the anti's too but she told me it was her only chance. Did they try to aspirate it? My CHINNY'S was to hard. They said the skin would sluff off as it healed. Good luck.
 
I have Baytril and metacam, and sulfa (TMZ) and am thinking about just giving her the baytril. I am not happy with her decision, and the wound looks worse now. I will try another vet, but I don't think her chances are good. Did you ever find out what the cause was? Did you get a necropsy done?
 
Why don't you have feed the kit and take care of the mother.

I just see it as dealing with handfeeding for a few weeks is better than the kit being fed by the mother and the mother dying from not getting treatment...

Just an idea
 
Chantel I'm so sorry. I think your vet is a moron this time, as there ARE antibiotics she could give the mom, and there's no reason they couldnt try to draw something up out of the "tumor/lump" area to see what it is.

Also - my vet has no problems guesstimating an antibiotic to start without waiting for cultures if he thinks its imperative to start them immediately. Which in this case, I would think it seems to be that way. I'd opt for TMS/TMZ as it shouldnt really affect the kit. At worst, like Megan mentioned, it might affect her growth a bit, but I'm sure thats better than a sick (or dead) momma chin.

And also like suggested, hand feeding or at least supplementing the kit, would help avoid/lessen the intake of antibiotics from momma's milk. Good luck with both of them!
~Barb~
 
I will definitely give her some TMZ, and I am thinking about fostering the baby to another mom who just had babies. The vet said that she would not do this however, since if it is mastasis it could get worse? Does that make any sense? I am bringing her to a new vet tomorrow, they have to do something.
 
Chantel, I'm not much help because I'm not a breeder, but I just want to say your beautiful Oreo is in my thoughts all the time. I love her and want her to be all right. I would definitely try to see another vet though because it just doesn't sound right. I'm keeping my fingers and tossed crossed!
 
It seemed to me to look better this morning. The abcess seems smaller, and the wound seems less irritated. I covered it in blu kote and am giving her TMZ twice a day until I see the vet in the morning. Hopefully she can tell without surgery what is going on. Poor Oreo, why does it always happen to our favorites?
 
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