farthing
17-10-2009, 07:58 PM
Just a wee update.
We had to get Jess, our bunny with the abscess PTS as she couldn't eat enough to maintain her weight. On the same day Fliss, our rat with respiratory problems was PTS for pretty much the same reasons, we had the vet come out to the house, so it was very stress free for the animals. The night before we lost Charlie, one of our guinea pigs, he had developed diarrhoea, and died within 48 hours.
The next week we lost Mia, our original rat, initially the vet thought she had a cystitis, after treatment she did improve but went downhill again. This time we thought it was a pyometra, however when the vet operated they found an almost full term fetus on her, which had started to break down and had poisoned her system. She died shortly after the op, we were even more upset about this as we had her for 7 months and have no males, so it had been sitting in her for all that time. I have to admit, I was very angry about losing Mia in this way.
Thye next week I noticed one of our cockerels was struggling to swallow, rushed him to the vet and he had a huge growth in his throat, they had to PTS. A couple of days later one of the other cockerels was showing similar symptoms, he was operated on and the growths were removed. After some research the vets think they had aspegillosis. This can be taken in by wild birds and develops in warm, wet conditions, often affecting immuno-compromised birds- in our case old ones. We think because the ducks and hens lived together, this provided ideal conditions for the fungus. We have just finished treating the birds with a weeks course of an antifungal med, except for Rusty, the surviving boy, who will be treated for 8 weeks, sadly we also lost Galaxy, our rhode island red, but we think he also had a heart condition.
At one point we did think about giving up, but then there was Jimmy and 4 quail, who were hatched from eggs and were then unwanted as they were too flighty.
What do you do, you boot yourself in the bum and get on with it.
We had to get Jess, our bunny with the abscess PTS as she couldn't eat enough to maintain her weight. On the same day Fliss, our rat with respiratory problems was PTS for pretty much the same reasons, we had the vet come out to the house, so it was very stress free for the animals. The night before we lost Charlie, one of our guinea pigs, he had developed diarrhoea, and died within 48 hours.
The next week we lost Mia, our original rat, initially the vet thought she had a cystitis, after treatment she did improve but went downhill again. This time we thought it was a pyometra, however when the vet operated they found an almost full term fetus on her, which had started to break down and had poisoned her system. She died shortly after the op, we were even more upset about this as we had her for 7 months and have no males, so it had been sitting in her for all that time. I have to admit, I was very angry about losing Mia in this way.
Thye next week I noticed one of our cockerels was struggling to swallow, rushed him to the vet and he had a huge growth in his throat, they had to PTS. A couple of days later one of the other cockerels was showing similar symptoms, he was operated on and the growths were removed. After some research the vets think they had aspegillosis. This can be taken in by wild birds and develops in warm, wet conditions, often affecting immuno-compromised birds- in our case old ones. We think because the ducks and hens lived together, this provided ideal conditions for the fungus. We have just finished treating the birds with a weeks course of an antifungal med, except for Rusty, the surviving boy, who will be treated for 8 weeks, sadly we also lost Galaxy, our rhode island red, but we think he also had a heart condition.
At one point we did think about giving up, but then there was Jimmy and 4 quail, who were hatched from eggs and were then unwanted as they were too flighty.
What do you do, you boot yourself in the bum and get on with it.