Triple Mammary Tumour Removal (Leia, Nella and Xander)

Hello again, readers,

We wanted to follow on from our previous post introducing the 8 new resident doe rats. Within that post we briefly mentioned about Nella and Xander having mammary tumours which needed to be removed. Conveniently, around about the same time Leia had developed yet another tumour. We had our concerns if it would've been within the her best interest to keep surgically removing tumours - she had only just recovered from her last surgery when this tumour sprung up. We decided that it could've just been the worlds worst case of bad luck (it is Leia after all) and we went ahead and booked her in for surgery too. Should the tumours have continued to return, we would reassess the situation with our vet (please note that Leia is already on specialist preventative medication and is also spayed). So, the three does were having the same surgery on the same day.

This post will contain graphic content which some readers may find distressing.

We will enclose labelled images of the girls tumours:

Fur loss and scabs is due to Leia recently having surgery in this location.

All three girls had their tumours successfully removed and came around from the anesthetic beautifully. We thought it would've been very helpful for Nella and Xander to go through their recovery process as a trio with Leia. Leia was on surgery number 6 - she was very experienced. We thought she could use her wisdom and experience to help support the other girls through their first post-op recovery.

All of the girls went on a 5-day course of Baytril/Enrofloxacin (antibiotic) and canine Metacam/Meloxicam (NSAIDS). Leia was actually already on the necessary medication for other existing chronic health problems. You can support the use of antibiotics with probiotics - although evidence for their efficiency is limited, it certainly wouldn't do them any harm to use them anyway.

Unfortunately, it was necessary for all the girls to wear a cone during the healing process. Cones are considered quite controversial due to the risk of strangling and getting caught on objects, though they are most certainly effective - provided you can get them to stay on (luckily we are professional cone-assemblers now). We acknowledge the risks surrounding cones, and always provide safe an appropriate hospital accommodations to help reduce the risk of infection and injury. Normally, we use a ZooZone 2 as there is still space to get gentle exercise and no bars to significantly reduce the risk of injury when wearing a cone. We use a safe and clean non-pill fleece to line the floor and specific toys with multiple large entrances such as Sputniks with no base or a basket on its side etc. We normally provide a warm (not hot) head pad with a non-pill cover too. Unfortunately, when wearing a cone the animals have restricted movements and are often unable to eat most foods whilst wearing one. We then offer their normal food in the evening alongside WUB porridge (the girls preferred 'banana and strawberry' flavour or 'berry' flavour, but any will do) with added rat/mouse ground maintenance diet, honey and plain oats to help keep their weight and strength up. We also ensure someone is monitoring the rats more or less constantly and sleep next to the cage too in case any emergencies crop up. 

After surgery, the girls were naturally fairly stressed - I wouldn't like having a cone on my head either! However, despite that, they did settle remarkably well and we do believe that they were comforted by each others company. We checked the openings twice daily and also took photographs once daily so we could accurately compare and monitor the healing process. Rats seem to heal incredibly quickly and often bounce back from these surgeries before you know it (provided there are no complications). We will include the images here for those who are interested:

WARNING! GRAPHIC IMAGES!

Nella's tumour

Lump on final image is a reaction to suches dissolving

As I'm sure you've already guessed, all three does made a full recovery from their surgeries and were successfully re-bonded to their mischief again.

You can keep up with the does on our Instagram.