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Abscess Pus pouring out of abcess

Simonmaal

Well-known Member
Cavy Slave
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Posts
316
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Messages
316
I noticed this morning that Billy, one of my boys, had a lot of hair stuck together in a clump on the right hand side of his ribcage region. The matted fur was about 2 inches long by half an inch high. Upon looking closer, there was blood in the hair and a terrible smell. So I picked him up to take a look at him (which he squealed about, suggesting he was in pain), made sure there were no maggots in the area (which there were not) and noticed what looked like a flesh wound. He was also slightly listless and not his usual self.

So I made an appointment with the vet, who discovered a large abscess that looked frighteningly deep. The vet immediately flushed out the abscess and gave him an antibiotic injection, giving me baytril and 2 sachets of Supreme science recovery to take away with me. The vet asked me to make another appointment for 5 days' time unless he got worse or refused to eat. The vet also said that surgery would probably be necessary to remove the infected area.

Back home we went and, upon the vet's advice, I made him a new cage so he could recover alone. I put him in the new cage and within seconds, I noticed a huge amount of yellow pus on top of the fleece, about 4 inches long by an inch wide. I've cleaned it up and not yet seen any more but I am obviously really worried; this is a huge amount of pus, even if it came from a human; the fact it has come from a guinea pig is causing me a lot of distress. Billy is eating his hay but is not very full of energy, although he is not looking exhausted.

Strangely, Bobby, his former cagemate, has done nothing but popcorn around his cage since I separated them, but that is perhaps another story…

The main purpose of this post is to prepare myself for what the likely outcome of this situation is: has anybody here had any experience with this condition and if so, what is the likely outcome? This is not something I will come back to complain about if the prediction is wrong, but if this is potentially be fatal then it would help me to know that.

I will give it another few minutes to see if any more pus emerges and if so, I will return to the vet immediately.
 

Smudge & Monkey

Active Member
Cavy Slave
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Posts
36
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Messages
36
I'm not experienced with GP abscesses but I know a bit about cat fight abscesses, and usually once an abscess has formed the infection has been 'walled off' from the rest of the body, so the animal isn't 'sick' as such (will eat and drink normally) but the abscess site is painful. Once the abscess has been opened and drained the animal feels a lot better. the abscess will normally continue to leak for a couple of days after it has been opened and flushed (in cats they will put a drain in place for a couple of days to help it leak out).

So, I can't say whats going on with your piggy, I don't know if the pus was a huge amount or a normal amount, but I can say it is normal for an abscess to leak a bit more over the day or 2 following drainage. If he is eating his hay then he is not on his deathbed. If you're worried then call the vet and ask them over the phone if they need to see him and re-assess him.

Good luck :eek:)
 
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