Aldamar
Active Member
Hi all, first time poster. I'm taking care of a very handsome eastern cottontail right now, about three to four months old. After meeting my cat, the poor guy was wounded badly with two skin tears, and two small deep wounds on either side of his head.
We treated these quickly with betadine solution, diluted from ten down to 2.5%, and had great success. In fact, it's about two weeks later and they are almost healed - keeping the hair out was a pain, and I did a lot of careful trimming and gently tugged some fur out with tweezers. One of the tears was on his back, and when it gave me trouble I used a 'calcium alginate with silver' wound dressing for a day - cleared all infection up very quickly.
However, we missed a small puncture on his right fore leg until we saw the vet. It abscessed badly, and although we drained it, disinfected and irrigated twice daily with saline, it wasn't good enough. So when the vet gave me the choice of putting him down or amputation, I took the latter. That said, he is stable, made it through surgery, eats, drinks, and sometimes falls over while trying to periscope. What I wanted to ask everyone is whether they have any post op experience caring for an amputee like this little trooper, any advice tips etc.
Primary diet is Timothy hay, with a blueberry treat once in a while. He's on Orbafloxacin as an antibiotic, and metacam for anti inflammatory and pain.
Cheers all, thanks for taking time to read.
- Al
We treated these quickly with betadine solution, diluted from ten down to 2.5%, and had great success. In fact, it's about two weeks later and they are almost healed - keeping the hair out was a pain, and I did a lot of careful trimming and gently tugged some fur out with tweezers. One of the tears was on his back, and when it gave me trouble I used a 'calcium alginate with silver' wound dressing for a day - cleared all infection up very quickly.
However, we missed a small puncture on his right fore leg until we saw the vet. It abscessed badly, and although we drained it, disinfected and irrigated twice daily with saline, it wasn't good enough. So when the vet gave me the choice of putting him down or amputation, I took the latter. That said, he is stable, made it through surgery, eats, drinks, and sometimes falls over while trying to periscope. What I wanted to ask everyone is whether they have any post op experience caring for an amputee like this little trooper, any advice tips etc.
Primary diet is Timothy hay, with a blueberry treat once in a while. He's on Orbafloxacin as an antibiotic, and metacam for anti inflammatory and pain.
Cheers all, thanks for taking time to read.
- Al
