Thank you, Bruce, and good morning everybody. We're gonna have a, I'm sure it's gonna be an absolutely fascinating morning with, with two of the great, speakers that we have on the webinar, vets. So a big thank you to, to John Olivia.
I'm sure their, their presentations will be really educational and engaging as usual. So just a little bit about Burgess pet care, we have been working with a webinar vet for a few years now, and we are committed to supporting veterinary education because we believe it's the right thing to do. In terms of our business, I, I show these slides quite a lot.
We have been in, in business for, for a number of years, and we can trace our roots back to a water mill near Fountains Abbey. World Heritage site, which is just about 500 yards from where I'm sat this morning. And then we have a history of innovation.
So they moved from the water mill to the mill on the, the bottom left, which is in Kirby Fleetha. Again, that's about, 15 minutes' drive from where I am. We're in the, the mid-19th century, they, in, the Burgess family, Put some steam power into that, capturing the, the zeitgeist of the industrial age.
And when we were looking through the archives, the, the picture on the, on the top right, was a mill with, some innovation, some new machinery that going in there in the, in the late 1940s. And we quite like that picture. In terms of terms of today's health and safety culture, you can see there, all the machines there with their belts completely unguarded, a very different atmosphere, and way of working to what we have today.
So, as I say, we haven't been in business for a long time, and, and that's because. We believe in, in long-term investment and, and doing the right thing. Today, Victory Mill is, it's our head office.
It's been our head office since 1922, so coming short, just short of 100 years, that we've been based there. And all our, our foods are manufactured at Cherry Tree Mill, which is in the, in East Yorkshire, and that puts us close to all our key suppliers. I, I just like to remind people that we are more than just rabbit food.
We make food for, for lots of different species, and you can see there, chinchilla rats, a ferret, dog food and cat food. And just on the top right, just at the back end of last year, working with Paul O'Grady, we have launched a new range of dog food, and that's proven to be very successful. So we have lots of different products, all based on, on what we believe are sound, well, not, just believe they are based on sound nutritional principles, and doing the right thing for the, for the animals.
As I say, we have a history of innovation, and just at the back end of last year, we did bring out a new product, which was the indoor rabbit food. I'd just like to spend a few minutes just explaining the kind of the, the rationale behind that. So when we were looking at the PDS, poor report, that came up with the result that 39% of rabbits in the UK are housed indoors, and we did some work on our, ourselves with the Great British rabbit census.
Which you can see there indoor, only about 35%, but mixed indoors and outdoors, and that tends to be a seasonal, aspect to that. It's 27%. So, depending on the time of the year, up to more than 50% of the rabbits in the UK will be housed indoors, and that does bring some, some challenges.
What we found is that most of these indoor rabbits were almost, free range is probably the wrong word to do, but they, they, they did have lots of space to exercise and that's probably a better thing for them rather than being kept in a hutch. In a garage and, and, and forgotten about, and actually being close to the owners did mean that the owners could, interact with them more and actually spend more time with them. And again, there are some benefits as that, to that, .
As well as some potential behavioural things that people need to think about. But as we said, over 50% of the rabbits housed in, housed indoors. So in terms of the food, what we were looking to do, Again, these are the nuggets.
They, they're a supplement to the hair, which should be 85% to 90% of the diet. In terms of prebiotics, we're looking to support a healthy gut bacteria, a healthy digestive function. We have the addition of L carnitine which does help to metabolise fat, .
Sometimes these rabbits indoors can be less active than the outdoor rabbits, and certainly from a thermoregulation point of view they won't be burning as much. Energy, to, to keep warm as outdoor rabbits, especially at this time of year. We have called that vitamin D on, on the product, that is there for healthy skin and bones and it has a number of other benefits in terms of immune support.
There was a study, and, and forgive me for forgetting, that came out, I think it was last year, looking at the vitamin D status of indoor house rabbits, and stating that they, they had low levels of vitamin D. There's still some work, I think, to be done about exactly about vitamin D, metabolism in rabbits and lots of research can highlight that. But the worry is when you go on to forums that, that people, rabbit owners have seen this, that the indoor rabbits could have potentially lower levels of vitamin D.
And there's always a risk then that they will go and, and start supplementing, with vitamin D. And then the risk with that is that they, you know, if 5 is good, 10 is better, and there's a, a, a risk of, The owner is giving two higher levels of vitamin D. So by calling that out on the front of the bag, we just want to reassure owners that they don't need to go and supplement their rabbits diet with extra levels of vitamin D.
And then nettle and dandelion, There are some, potential urinary tract health benefits to that. And the other thing is that owners, like to give their rabbits dandelions because they're really palatable, and that does mean that they, They like to see their rabbits enjoying their food. And just in a little bit of news, Rabbit Awareness Week will be taking place in June again this year.
We'll announce the, the theme, a little later in the year. And all I will ask. People, it's just to keep an eye on the Rabbit Awareness Week website, keep an eye on the rabbit Awareness Week social media themes.
And as soon as that becomes, available, we'd encourage all practises to, to sign up to Rabbit Awareness Week, to help educate owners and improve the welfare and health of rabbits in the UK. We do have a special offer, so the indoor rabbit food for practises in the UK through the UK veterinary wholesalers, we will do an offer of buy 3 bags of The rabbit and you can have one free, . And if you want to take up that offer, that is available on the email address [email protected].
If you want to, any support material, leaflets, posters, and things like that, please use that, that email address to contact us. And if you are listening from abroad and you're interested to find out about international distributors, again, please use that email address and we will answer your questions. That's it for me this morning.
I'm sure we're gonna have a really fascinating day, and thank you and. Let's, let's enjoy the, enjoy the lectures. Thank you.
Great, thank you very much. Thank you and good day to everyone, that is listening this webinar. I'm really pleased to talk about small mammals as, as always, and it was fascinating listening John's webinar.
So, he was talking about like a very rare and interesting small mammals. During this lecture, we will discuss instead a little bit more common, mammals. They are not maybe as common as, rabbits these days, but there are still animals that we see in our clinic.
And, and they are, they are quite, quite interesting. And, owners that they are often quite attached to them. And these days, they tended to do.
to, to, to ask more for in terms of investigation and treatment. We can't cover everything, so I thought to, start with three species, guinea pigs, rats, and ferrets, and we will talk about eurolithiasis and ovarian cyst, in guinea. Pigs, respiratory disease, and mammary tumours and rats.
And then in ferrets, I wanted to discuss about hyperestrogenism, but also touched a little bit of base, with they like a sort of a handle in a husbandry. So this is something I will do just with the ferret rather than guinea pigs and rats, hopefully. We all know a little bit of the management of these, these animals.
Except for the parrot. I wanted to discuss before, starting with the, the medical conditions, a little bit of talking about in general about especially rodents rather than, than ferrets as a disposable, pets. Unfortunately, there are still, owners there that they, see that this animal as, .
Not really part of the family. They tended to buy them for educational purposes, for their children or because of their children really they nag them or that they want a pet that they feel like they don't have enough time for cats and dogs, so they go for what they think is a more simple animal. And we all know.
If we see them, that actually is, really the opposite. It's not easy to, to care them. They have the special needs and especially in, in terms of veterinary care, sometimes, we, we needed to think a little bit harder on what we needed to do with, with them is different from cats and dogs, so they're not.
Physiology is is different. So we needed to go a little bit back to basic, with, with them, especially because maybe we don't see so many cases. And sometimes I wanted to do not appreciate, appreciate that and how much effort we we put in treating these, these animals.
So, my, my advice in this case is that if by any chance you encounter a client like that where is really unsure about the animal that didn't really care, spend a little bit more time with, with them, go through the, the, the management of the animal and the husbandry and the diet. But Also, try to make them understand how these animals can be part of the, the the family and that they have a really nice, character and that they, they can be fun and they have needs, in the same way as cats and dogs. And this, this will help the relationship between, us as a vets and, .
Veterinary professionals and, and the client that will really help also, and understanding what type of treatment we can do at the clinic and and at home. The other main concept, it was about pain. As, as Bruce said, I'm doing a PhD in, in this case, rabbit pain and, and stress.
So pain is really at the moment like a, a topic close to my, to my heart, and . It is very important, especially in these, in these animals, especially in rodents, because they tended to hide the, the clinical signs. However, there are clinical signs of pain.
It's just sometimes we do not know how, what to look for really. For ferrets perhaps is a little bit like cats. They do so a little bit more than sign of pain than than, than rodents.
However, they tended to hide it as well. They, they are not as obvious as, as, as we thought. .
The, the main thing is the behavioural changes. So if we have a good idea of what is a normal behaviour of these species, this our pets, even the individual animal, then it is a sort of easier to to realise that the animal is He's in pain, maybe after, a shock, a trauma, even after surgery, despite maybe the analgesic protocol. Some are obviously common sign that they are reluctant to eat.
So maybe they stop passing faeces as well. They're hunched and the, the ferrets tended to be in this stretched position. Normally they are very relaxed and or curled up and and being funny.
They are not like that. They are quite quiet in sign of pain and the eyes, they tended to be closed. We don't have a like .
Pain scales for these animals, so behavioural changes are important. Our own experience are really important. We can use numerical pain scales.
They are a little bit subjective, but if it's always the same person, taking the pain score, definitely helps, and I would suggest to do it during the per operative time. This is a slide with the possible some analgesic drugs that we can we can use the, my the best approach is obviously a multimodal approach even in, in these animals, so we should always take in consideration perhaps a non-steroidal steroidal drug combined with an opioid and if we are doing. Surgery that we can also add local anaesthetic block maybe to the, to the wound or to the skin, if we do, we perform a castration and, and so on.
On top of that, also we needed to think about the perioperative time when we, we treat the pain, we needed to think to prevent it, so before the pain happens, if it's possible like in case of a surgery. During the surgery to have a better anaesthetic, but also after till the animal artery will gain, will go back to a normal behaviour. So it's not just a 12 hours or 2 hours after the surgery, but it could be 345 days after.
We needed to consider the entire time. I wanted to draw attention on the meloxicam in in rodents. As you can see in rats is generally higher than what we would use for other species, so like rodents like rats and hamsters, mice, the The level of meloxicam is like a 5, 10 times higher than what you would do for a ferrotic cast and so on.
So is 1 or 2 milligrammes per kilo. We need to remember, that because sometimes, we might, slip our mind. In guinea pigs, at the moment, meloxicam is advised, generally advise around the 0.2, 0.3 milligrammes, per kilo once a day.
However, there are studies out there that suggest that that might not be enough, and there are like Possibility to use up to 0.5 milligrammes per kilo, even twice daily. And this is something that I tended to use, especially after a surgical procedure, castration or stay and so on, in, in order to be sure that the animal is, is comfortable, especially when I send them home and I want them to, to go back to eat, normally and prevent any, any illness.
So we now start with the guinea pigs. So you can see here this is a, one of my little patients. You can see straight away it's not really, happy, happy guinea pigs.
The ears are a little bit low, the eyes are, they are not closed, but it's not nice and open, and the, the cheeks are a little bit, sharp and say, it's definitely was not comfortable at that time, a little bit on a quiet, side. . Usually it's, I wanted to talk about the urinary stones because they are quite, quite frequent in in guinea pigs, especially in, in female.
Guinea pigs, and, the aetiology is not clear. We, we, we still don't know much about it, the formation of, of the stones in the urinary tract of the, guinea pigs. However, we have a couple of, a couple of ideas.
First, General health of the animals, so that it doesn't help if presented with a poor diet, where obviously we have a like a deficiency in vitamins and mineral salts and so on. But also if the diet is really high in calcium and oxalate, we know that calcium and stones of calcarbonate and oxalate are the most common with the carbonate being the really most common ones. So diet where, the animal receive a lot of celery, kale.
Spinach, maybe alpha alpha, these are they, they tended to absorb all the calcium from the the diet, use the water they need, and then itsre to the rest. Via the the urine, the, the kidneys, the urinary tract, what happens that guinea pigs that have alkaline urines and then this make precipitate the calcium crystals and, and it's in this case, they become more prone. To, to the stone formation.
However, this is not the only thing, we need to consider also if there are like a kidney problems, that maybe they impact on the excretion of calcium. If the animal actually doesn't move much, it's confined in a small space, it's . So it's not moving much.
It's not avoided the urine that often and they sit, they sit there in the, in the bladder and or even if it's not in a not kept clean so they can have an infection of the urinary tract. And this is animals that are really low and really close to the ground, and it's quite easy for them to get infection. When they arrived, generally the, the owner complains that the animal is squeaking, when is, is, is passing urine, and they said, or they can see, blood in, in the urine.
These are the most obvious clinical signs that they already give you an idea of what the problem could be. But sometimes what you see is also like an animal that maybe is a little bit scruffy, is not keeping himself clean themselves clean. And that maybe has lost weight.
Even in this case that you needed to consider the urinary stones as a possible differential. Going back into the urine, you can see like here that in the, the colour generally tended to be yellow and creamy, but remember that today, rodents in general, they can have a different type of colours that it goes from yellow transparent to darker brownish and like a really a cream and thick. So, if there is a suspect of blood, in the urine, definitely, perform a urinary test.
To confirm that and be sure that it's not just pigment, for example. Then during the, the physical examination, generally if there is a stone in the urinary tract, you will feel like for example in the around the bladder, you will feel probably pain at palpation during the animal will squeak. If instead is like maybe affecting the kidneys, so you might feel an enlarged kidney that is like an abnormal shape.
We want to definitely to investigate, further the blood sampling to have a general idea of the health of the animal that will help us also for. If we needed to do any, any surgery to prevent any problem there. Radiography is probably the, the, the best test.
Remember though that this should be done by, with the animal under anaesthetic. I know that many owners are scared that they don't want the animal to be sedated. I'll have just like a quick, .
Cariogram, like a guinea pig X-rays, doesn't really help much. Yes, it maybe tell us that there is a stone, but where is it? And is the only one, it could be overimposed.
So the anaesthetic and to perform a proper radiographic examination is the best in terms of value for money as well for the owner, because then you have a straighter diagnosis and then you can And that you can perform a surgery if necessary. If really the animal is not stable, but you want to start to have an idea, then ultrasonography, if the animal is tangible, that it could start giving you an idea. Obviously, you need to be bear bear in mind that the artiact due to the, to the stone with the, with the probe.
If you wanted to take a blood sampling, the, I tended to use the, cranial vena cava, as you can see in the, in the photo that it will be under anaesthetic. I will never do it in a conscious. Otherwise, the jugular cephalic, all the other stuff you know, the other veins are really good.
And and I definitely, I would suggest that if you, if the owner is happy, go for blood X-rays, start having a good idea of what's going on with these animals. We, we have, we tended to be a little bit scared when it in terms of a sedation anaesthetic of guinea pigs. We know that the mortality rate is higher compared to other animals.
However, there is no reason not to To perform or carry out this procedure. We just need to maybe to plan it a little bit more than than what we would do for cattle and, and dog. We needed to consider the small size of the animal and therefore a drop in body temperature during the The, the, the procedure, we need to consider the possibility of developing oxy.
They have a really small lung capacity to raise the chance so they can breed, breed well. We need to consider that perhaps they are dehydrated after the blood circulation, and the chromero filtration is not optimal. So don't rush, start with fluid therapy.
Oxygenation and also remember to reduce the stress in these animals. Some of them might be able . Used to be handled other, they, they are particularly stressed and very guinea pig, where they tended to, to, to run away and hide.
So be sure. That the stress or stressors in your clinic are reduced. For example, the first slide, I, I talked about rats, guinea pigs and ferrets.
Do not put ferrets with the rodents because even just the smell will stress this, this animal. It's just a simple example. It works also for cats and dogs.
So try to keep it away from this stress and the anaesthetic will definitely improve. Don't rush if the animal is dehydrated, hasn't eaten, start first to focus on stabilise the patient and then go for the sedation, the anaesthetic, and you will see that is. The outcome, it will be even more successful.
In terms of fluid therapy, the maintenance rate is around 100 mL per kg per day, so it's around the 4 kg per hour. And the surgical rate is, is much, much higher. There is no reason not to try to place an IV catheter in the cephalic vein in these animals.
It depends on the size, but the, the bigger one definitely is something, that you can do if you, you, if you have more experience with dogs, just pretend that it is a little kitten or a really A small pug and you will be absolutely fine. The vein is not that, that bad. Otherwise, you can, just give a bolus subcutaneously.
The value that you have here is more for animals in shock, otherwise 1020 miles is probably. Per kilo is probably enough if it's more like to support during the, the anaesthetic and remember that it is important to give a warm fluid and here you can see the picture with the tummy tippee that it can then be used at the clinic once you finished if that it can be bought anywhere really. We go for, I tended to reduce the stress and a little bit of a sedation.
So my favourite approach is to start with the midazolam and buprenorphine, give some, some time. And then use an induction chamber. Isoflurane, obviously sevoflurane will be better, but isoflurane is fine as well after they've been premedicated.
And once they lose the writing reflex, you can maintain the, the anaesthetic or oxygenation with a face mask around the nose. Remember, they are obligated nasal breather. So if it's a tight around the nose, in some cases you can even try and ventilate them.
However, You could try to incubate them and they are on YouTube like nice little videos that I can help you with this procedure. However, generally you need a rigid endoscope but it's doable, maybe for more difficult procedures. Going back to the, the urinary stones, at this point, you have a good idea of the animal.
You have to perform a blood test if it's possible, you know where the stones are, that could affect the kidneys, the urethra, and so on. Medical treatment, let's assume that they are in the bladder. Medical treatment generally is really unrewarding and not very successful, is more supportive treatment and it's more like it for really small stones in the bladder that you think that they might pass through the urethra.
Otherwise, a really surgical treatment, if they are in the urethra is very quick procedure, very quick surgery, and those are my really my favourite, the animal recover quite quickly. All the others are a little bit more invasive we enter the abdominal cavity. If we do the cystoomy, remember maybe to take also a sample.
Or the, the, the bladder wall, so you can send it for histology and and culture for further investigations. If they are in the kidneys and then you need to think of the, the, the renal function, you might want to maybe to perform a contrast study before performing any, any surgery or remove the, the kidney. And, and, and so on.
They can be quite a frustrating case. There are lots of complications with the more severe stones and they also can relapse, so it's definitely something we can We can see. So in this case, in these pictures you can you can see we have a really large stone in in the right kidney, but also we have And large ureter with the stone that is sitting between basically the distal part of the ureter and the bladder.
So unfortunately this animal had to be put to sleep. It was really a severe case and before the, another thing about the, the, the, the, the, the treatment once you perform the surgery. Just remember is to reduce the, the, the calcium level in, in the diet that is probably the, the most important thing, where you sure that enamello drinks a lot of good water intake and has a diet where the, the, the, the calcium intake is reduced, especially at the beginning.
There are many that they tend to use also potassium citrate tended to bind the calcium. Guinea pigs already have alkaline urines, so it, it doesn't work, work all the time. It's not something that I did advise, but there are colleagues that they tended to give it post-surgeon and they have a I found it successful.
The ovarian sister also is a quite common, common presentation in female, guinea pigs. So we tended to see it at the age of between 2 and 4. However, they can also be present in really young, young animal, but without obvious, clinical signs.
When we talk about, so the variances that we have like a disease is this. See the full of the fluid and We needed to bear in mind that it's not just a, we took just one type. There are different type of ovarian cyst, and this depends on the what tissue of the ovaries is affected.
So the most common one that we tend to, to see. Are basically serious, serious cyst of the rate of ovary, and, and the, these they are like they go up to like 70, 80% of of of the animal that can be affected by by this type of cyst. The other cy said that it can develop are the follicular cysts.
So basically the, the, the follicle failed to ovulate and that is when we have the cyst and this particular one are like related to, they are generally related to hormonal imbalance. Another system that is really rare is basically the para ovarian system and this one is is, is very, is very is very rare and it's basically like a sort of vestigial remain that you can find in the ovary. So, and the, the, the, the, the variance is the, the most common, the rate of vary and this one, they are not really related to the, due to hormonal imbalance.
We don't really know about the its theology. It's very controversial and sometimes we think that it is more because of dysfunction of the hypothalamic pituitary go gonaal axis, really. So the, with, with this one, generally what we see is the owner not like a, a symmetrical alopecia, especially on the back of the, of the animal on each side of the, the spine and doesn't present like it's not really itchy.
When we perform in the physical examination, we might notice that the animal is, is a, is a thinner, but also we noticed that it has lost that a pear shape that is common of guinea pigs. The abdomen is, is enlarged, is bulging, it's bulging out really. Also, if there are some hormonal changes, we might see on vaginal, vaginal bleeding.
But the, the main thing is the animal overall is it's a little bit quieter, it's not, it's no, exhibiting the normal behaviour. There is a, there is definitely, it is obvious that is, is of colour. So we wanted to, At palpation generally.
We already start having an idea. We feel that the mid dorsal area of the abdomen, there are these, masses, so the, the fact that it might be bilateral, so ovarian cysts that tended to be, bilateral. If they are unilateral that is rare, again, for some reason it's more on the right side, on affecting the right ovary rather than the left one.
But basically, in in this area, mid abdomen. And also, you can feel this structure that can be quite, quite large, as well. At that point, I would suggest it straight away to go for ultrasonography, either with the animals sedated, if it's particularly stressed, or it can be done also consciously if it used to be, to be handled.
And that will, will tell you straight away. If the, the, the sisters, if the sisters are there, X-rays obviously in this case are maybe less, less reliable, then the ultrasound scan just because they are full of, filled with, with fluid. .
It is possible to perform a final last parade or have is not generally something that I did suggest, there is always the chance. Of a little bit of a leaking within the abdominal cavity and there's definitely something that we don't want and we, we don't want to lead any preonitis, or any possible infection. The, the treatment of of choice would be basically to remove the surgically remove the, the, the cyst.
So because of the, the procedure will be to remove it, to, to stay the animal via the, midline approach. If the, the animal is not stable enough, you need to consider if it to perform the surgery when and if to perform the surgery, depending on the, on the problem, perhaps, as we mentioned before, we started performing the surgery. We start stabilising the animal and maybe we perform the surgery 2048 hours later.
If that is an older animal. And we needed to consider if the surgery is actually, beneficial. However, there are no many other treatment that we can use.
So the hormonal treatment, as I mentioned before. For good work only for follicular cyst. So you could start that and see if if you have any changes.
If you see changes, then you can make a diagnosis of a follicular cyst. If you don't see changes, then it's probably the more common ovarian ovarian cyst. The distin you can distinguish amongst these different type of cyst only performing histology, .
Regard to the implant, the there's lurine, they are not really convincing evidence out there that it, it works. So, You could discuss with the owner if you wanted to try, but the owner needed to be aware that it can be costly and that not really helping master the, the animal or in this case to reduce this. The the percutaneous drainage might help the animal to feel a little bit better.
But we needed to know that it will, fill in, the system will fill up again, quite quickly. So you need to consider, consider that, as well. So to prevent, because they are so common, ideally the best will be to prevent them when the animal is young perform.
And, and spade this animal. This is something that, it depends. It's not that common, but it's definitely, it's not a common procedure, but it's definitely something we can advise to the owner.
If they are young, because of the type of, anatomy with a really short suspensory ligament, the midline approach is tended to be a little bit tricky, especially also because of the big sum sitting in on top of it. So we tend to advise the flunk approach and that it is much easier and, and you can even just perform ovarectomy if the animal is quite young and there are no problem with the uterus, then the ovarectomy is that the, the, the treatment of, of toys. You have the animal on the .
On the lateral recumbency and basically the skin incision is the, between the last rib and ventral, basically to the spinal spinal muscle. Now, I tended to perform one incision on the right flank and one on the left flank. So basically two approaches.
So once I've done one side. I turned at the animal, we scrubbed and prepared surgically the animal, the other flank, and then we performed the surgery. However, there are colleagues that they tended to do, .
Both, both sides, both ovaries from the same, the same incision. So, if you You, you can try and if if you are struggling, you can always go and, and do the second, the second incision as well. With the, with the guinea pigs, we need to always to bear in mind that the vitamin, the vitamin C, because, with a poor, poor diet, obviously, they tended to develop a curvy.
So, and, obviously joint problem already they have they, they are prone to arthritis, so we don't want them to develop anything else that it could affect the joint and lead them to pain for long term. With the vitamin C, we need to bear in mind that for a healthy animal, 10 milligrammes per kilo per day is enough and if they receive a fresh grains, . That is the amount that they, the right amount that it will get.
Stress, stressed animal or sick animal, they should receive a much more level of vitamin, vitamin C. So when they're out of the clinic and we needed to treat them, we should supplement them with more vitamin C up to even 100 milligrammes per kg per day. Higher than that.
Then, obviously it's not beneficial for the animal, especially if they are healthy. And one thing that vitamin C can lead is to urinary stones. So if it's too much, like 200 milligrammes per kg per day, for example, in a healthy animal, that will create a problem.
However, if they are stressed and sick at the clinic, you should supplement them with the vitamin C, and there are different ways to do it. The one that I like the most is to offer this little sort of a tablet of the compressed hay that with the vitamin C, you know exactly how much. This is a generally advised to give to a healthy animal.
But you can offer as a, as a treat to the guinea pigs so you know exactly how much you are given and there's an option. Otherwise, you can have the drops in the, in the water, but you needed to change them regularly, otherwise it will be degraded by the water and the light. With the rats, this is, I thought to put this photo just because it's quite funny with a little corn.
It's not something that we, advise all the time. Remember that they also tended to eat their own faeces and that, that it's part of the digestive system so the corn. It might be a temporary thing or maybe one day if it is necessary depending on the problem.
But if we perform like a routine surgical procedures and we do a really nice intradermal surgery, maybe an intradermal . Suture and maybe if necessary, we can do a little bit of a local anaesthetic block. It is enough and they don't tend really to chew, the wound.
This was from a paper in, in 2015, and it's quite nice because it was, they went back and looked at all the cases and see what they were the, the most common ones, and you can see that the most common one tends to be respiratory problem, especially over the upper respiratory tract and mammary tumour, and that is what we will talk about today. An interesting thing is the rhinitis. The rhinitis, we need to remember that they have a very sensitive respiratory tract, and anything that can irritate the, the respiratory tract could lead to lead to rhinitis .
Respiratory infection. So it is important for the owner to be sure that there are no scented bending, bedding, no use like a no smoke, clean the cage, often. Remember, the, the ammonia is quite strong in the urine.
So that as well can irritate the animal and so on. So they have to be really careful about the, the environment. I had an owner that she she really cared about the, the rat, but she was a smoker.
And, and she was very careful and said, no, I don't smoke in the house. It's always outside. Our Heather.
She would handle the animal, with, without washing her hand after smoking. So her clothes and hands, they were like like impregnated with the, with the smoke with the, the, the, the cigarette smell, and that we would triggered basically the, the route of, the, the we start sneezing straight away as soon as she was going to handle them. So we had to remove that and be sure that she would change it at least her clothes.
So this is just an an example just to give an idea. How sensitive they, they can, they can be. With the respiratory disease, in the past, we were thinking just about the mycoplasma pulmonis.
I have now we talk about the chronic respiratory syndromes where we have several components and, and we can, there is a combination of bacterial and viruses. So maybe not all of them, but at least the two or three of them say . We needed to consider that, but also it's more, we need to consider predisposing factor, as I just mentioned, we needed to be very careful of their husbandry and their and their management because that will trigger, the, the infection once they, they.
The respiratory tract will be irritated. We will have like the, the pathogens taken over the, the normal flora and that is when we will have a The, the, our problems. Some of the initial clinical signs are not specific, but because of the rash, obviously we needed to bear in mind that that the respiratory problem could be the cause, and we needed to have a really stronger, to take a really good stronger history so that it will help us aid in, in making a diagnosis.
The early stage, obviously we have anorexia lethargy, but perhaps like a poor court condition and also the red tears, those are the first sign that the animal is not happy. There is something there, is the stress and is not is not well. With the red tears, you might not see the red tears around the eye.
You might see them around the nose or on the back of the neck because they're cleaning themselves. So even those stages like a red staining on the back of the, of the neck, that means there is something happening. They, when they develop a proper respiratory problem, and then you see all those clinical signs specific with ocular nasal discharge, dyspnea.
Remember inspiratory, expiratory dyspnea that will help you to identify these more upper or lower respiratory tract. If we have an animal with open mouth breathing, that is a bad prognosis. They are animals, they are obligated nasal breather.
They breathe through the nose. They have a very long soft palate. If they have to breathe through the mouth, they, they have really to make an effort to dislodge the.
The soft palate, and that means that it, this happen only when it's really, they are really, really struggling. These are animals that they needed to be handled, only when necessary, minimise the handling, reduce the stress and, and start straight away with supportive treatment to be sure they are warmer, good free therapy, and so on. With the respiratory infection, we want to investigate and make a proper diagnosis, even in these animals.
It can be scary and as we mentioned before, stabilise stabilise them is definitely important before, engaging or starting a sedation. So we have an animal that is open mouth breeding, for sure, we not do any sedation or anaesthetic. At that time in order to investigate.
However, if it's an animal that presents a respiratory problem, but we, we don't, we think it's stable, definitely we go with a light sedation and we take them. We take the, the X-ray. So the X-ray will give us an idea of what's going on and the baseline and then we can also do some nasal wash, tracker wash that we can send for cytology and culture to have a better idea.
What what's happening. If we wanted to take blood, obviously remember they have the lateral tail veins, but also the, the best one probably is the lateral subfina vein that is a little bit more bile but it's really good. In terms of treatment.
So, obviously, oxygen therapy and we start with the antibiotics, especially if we have the results of a, a, a culture. The, the best approach is still a combination of androfloxacin and Doxycycline, depending on the severity, this, can be given for like a few weeks, a minimum of 2, but it can be carried on for even for 6 weeks, because they, . To, to be sure that we, we get, we, we help the animal and to fight the infection.
However, we know that they will have chronic changes for, for the rest of their, their life. So that is why we call it also chronic respiratory syndrome. So it is important also to use the nebulization.
Nebuliization is really a great way to give drugs but also to to treat the animal long term. Often they do not like it because of the, the mist and because of the noise of the nebulizer, however, with using positive reinforcement and training, they can get used. It might take time, but it's definitely worth it to, to do it.
With the nebulization, we can nebulize all the the antibiotics. We can use F10, that is a dis disinfectant that help to keep down the levels of bacterial and viral agent. And then with all this doesn't help, obviously, we can also administer muccolytics, bronchodilator, and that to give it a chance for the animal to sneeze out all the dry mucus and also to breathe, to breathe better.
Long-term treatment though, it is generally the best is to, to use a daily nebilization with this F10. It's once a day if they take it well, and it's a really excellent method to, to, to be sure that they have a really, they stay healthy and they have a really nice quality of life. Always consider also the, the environment.
The mammary tumours also are very common in in, in rats, and they are affected like a large percentage of female, female rabbit, sorry, female rats or have remember that they can affect the rats in a small percent it's male rats in a small percentage as well. What's happening with the Why do they develop this type of tumours? Well, they have a very extended mammary tissue.
This is it goes really from the chin to the, the inguinal, inguinal area. And they, the, there are several factors that they lead to the formation of the, the mammary tumour. This could be the ages it happens more in all the animal.
It could be the genetics. It could be the diet. It is the diet that we saw and we know that animal that they.
Eat a libitum that they are fatter or they eat a diet that is high in, in fat. They tend to develop tumours more often than other animals. So a good diet once again is very important for the general health of the animal.
And it seems like also they are influenced by hormone, especially oestrogen and, and prolactin. So all these all together and we, they, they can develop a mammal tumour. The most common one is the fibroadenoma.
And I'll have in some rare cases, they can also develop fibrosarcoma. So my advice is always to To send them a forest or perform a fine needle aspiration depending on what are the finances, . The clinical science generally, the animal is in good, is in good health but we can see these lumps of different sizes and they, they could be anywhere really in, in, in the body around the, the, the neck and the axilla area, inguinal area probably are the most common part.
If they are small, generally, they are a little bit mobile. But if you leave them there, the owner comes when they are too big, obviously, and they might get a little bit more, have more adhesion to the surrounding, tissue, and they might be less, less mobile and that the animal might have a difficulty, difficult, difficulty walking. The treatment of choice is to remove them, especially if the animal, if the, the The lump is, the mass is really tiny.
So as soon as you see them, advise the owner for, for surgery is really a quick procedure, and if they are small also, the wound is not too, too big. Obviously, the owner needs to be aware that it might. It might come back and not because you didn't remove it properly, but just because the recurrence is high and it could be in a similar place, but just because there is a mammary tissue left left there.
With the, in older animals that perhaps the surgery, it cannot be performed, and there are, there isn't not much that it can be done. So, if this was a tumour that happened that developed due to prolactin and influenza, then sometimes the treatment like with the Cabercoline can can help to reduce a little bit to the size of the, the tumour or to prevent it growing more. But if instead are due to other reason, then this treatment will not, will not work.
In terms of the prevention, the best would be to perform an ovarectomy when the animal is very, very young. So this seems like to reduce the incidence to like less than 5% per animal. So here it will be like an interesting discussion, debate to decide if it will be, it's a better approach to spay the animal when it's a younger, but it's a more invasive procedure or to remove the tumour, when the owner is older, the animal is older, but with a really straightforward, procedure.
So in terms of ferrets, as I said, we'll start with a little bit of a husbandry. This is an animal that they tended to live around the 8 to 10 years, even sometimes even more if and happy and healthy. They tend to be more nocturnal animals, and, however, to be honest, they sleep so much up to sometimes 18 hours per day, and that it doesn't really matter if they are nocturnal that you know, really.
They sleep so much is, is amazing. They often I would like to join them and they are so happy. The male, tended to be much bigger than a female, as you can see in the, in the body weight I gave you.
A male, they are often even like double in size of the, the female. So, if you, if you get a Adult female ferret if it's like a nice and petite, it's quite straightforward, you know, already, you, you don't really need to check the gender, you know, straight away is a, is a female. An interesting characteristic is that they tended to lose weight during the summer.
So if during the physical examination they are healthy, but they lost weight, it is possible that it's just due to this seasonal weight loss. However, if during the physical examination you see also other clinical sign, then bear in mind that the weight loss might not be a physiological one but due to an underlying disease, so this could help with the differential. The handling of this animal, it's quite important.
If you are not really used to them, the owner can often help. If they are used to be handled, they are actually quite nice animal. They are quite tame, or heather, they can bite you, but not because they are mean or because it's just that they are like a sort of exploring, testing, so they can have a sharp teeth, so just be careful, always.
Be aware. There are those that are actually quite aggressive, so in that case they can really damage, make a damage. So, in those cases you can even use gloves, if you are not much confident.
Otherwise, as you can see in the, in the photo tended to use maybe one hand around the. Pectoral girdle, just to support Eguardia on the other hand, On the, just on the, around the back legs. You can even scruff them or gently put a, a hand around the neck.
They have a really strong neck, neck muscles and So you don't damage or you don't suffocate them if you needed to scruff or gently control the head, putting your hand around the, the neck. They, they can wriggle a little bit, but, if you have the two hands, one on the upper body and one on the lower body, you will be able to perform a, a really nice physical examination. Remember there are strict carnival.
So they needed to receive a diet high in fat and proteins and the proteins they should be of like animal protein. Plant protein can lead to urinary stones and it's definitely something we want to, to avoid. So there are lots of a selection of a nice ferret food you saw at the beginning with Peter about the urges as well, for example, .
selling this feed for dry feed for ferret is definitely something to advise for the, the owner. In terms of preventative care, they should be vaccinated against the distemper. This can be started at the age of 6 to 8 weeks and repeated after 2 weeks.
So there are colleagues that they've given also a third injection. There are different opinion, but if you are concerned and definitely a third one can be given. Fleas, and the ear mites tended to see this more in work and ferret that maybe they tended to live outside.
And so that is a straightforward treatment, especially uride, so we can apply ivermectin topically or subcutaneously by injection, or even ellamectin. And then, we need to, during the lifetime, we need to be careful with the teeth so they can develop like a scaling and tartar, so toothbrushing is what is suggested at the moment, however, you need a gradual training with positive reinforcement, because it's not really straightforward. The important thing when we wanted to neuter ferrets, there are different opinions.
Of, how to, to control the reproduction or have the the best these days is the this lowering implant, implant, so the, generate agonistic implant. This is the best, in order to control the reproduction in, in this animal and also to prevent any risk of adrenal gland disease that we see with the normal surgical neuterine. However, especially in female ferrets overall, we know that neuterine is important one way or the, or the other.
Otherwise they risk to develop a hyper estrogenism. So ferret are, induced ovulators, so if they don't get, made, basically the level of oestrogen will keep going increasing, during the esters. Up to 6 months, during the breeding season that tended to start like in March and until, till till August.
The problem is that the, this increased level of oestrogen can lead us to severe bone marrow suppression and therefore creating lots of problems in terms of platelets about all blood, blood cells. What are the clinical, the clinical signs? The, the most common one is a very, really swelling of the, the vulva is quite engorged as you can see in this photo.
But you start also to notice Alopecia, sometimes it start from the tail, but the most common is bilateral symmetrical alopecia along the, the flanks that you might see also peas, blood in the urine, generally mucous membranes are paler, general health of the animal is poor, it's quiet, and so on. So it is important to start investigating. And the, the first thing is to take a blood test because we will definitely see a reduced in PCV.
We will have no regenerative anaemia, leukopenia, and, and, and so on. So it is possible to check the hormonal levels if you are unsure. We know that this similar clinical signs can be seen if there is an ovarian tumour, a very remnant, if there is an adrenal gland.
So if you are unsure. You could test the hormonal levels. So I'll have a, remember that if, if, for example, the animal has adrenal gland, disease, generally the blood test that would be a remarkable, would be fine, especially the haematology.
So that really could help you to distinguish between the two, the two diseases, . To the hormonal, hormonal panel and we check the different hormones so if we have an increase of ragel Only that we, we need to remember that it could be . It could be due to either hyperestrogenism or adrenal glands instead if we have an increase of the other hormones as well, like the progesterone and androinogen, in that case, we know that it's more adrenal glands and nothing to do with the hyperestrogenism.
The treatment, it really depends on how the animal is doing and how stable it is because in a really severe situation, you need to start straight away the supportive treatment for therapy, assist feeding, and, and so on. But you might even need a blunt transfusion, so you will need to find another ferret and, to do, to do that. We need obviously to, to induce the ovulation to prevent it, to reduce the level, to start reducing the level of oestrogen, and then it can be done with the, with an injection, chronic gonotropin injection gel job.
But we needed to remember that the level of oestrogen can last for, up to 2 weeks. So the supportive treatment should be, should be carried out for quite a long time and the implant then can be The implant then can be also placed and that it will help for to, to control the reproduction. Otherwise, in stable animal nutrient, surgical nutrients can be taken consideration if the deline, for example, is not available.
This is all for me. Thank you for your attention. I hope you enjoyed it.
And if you have any questions, I'm here. Livia, thank you so much. That was absolutely perfect.
We are running very, very tight on time, so I'm just going to take notes, not your problem, not your fault. I'm just going to take one question quickly. Sophie wants to know, at what age can one start with ill jabs and implants and is there a best time of the year to be doing these?
Yes, so basically the thyroids. They tend to, so the breeding season they basically starts in, in March on the following year from, so if they breed on, on, if they, they are born in 2019, and they will get, start the becoming sexually mature in 2020, around February, March. So the best would be to do it before that.
Excellent. Folks, I'm sorry, we've run out of time. We are on a very strict time schedule here because of the virtual congress running over the 24 hour period.
Livia, thank you so much for your time and your input. We really appreciate it and we do look forward to having you back on the webinar vet. To Peter Lancaster and his kind sponsorship from Burgess XL.
Thank you so much for sponsoring this. From myself, Bruce Stevenson, my controller Rich in the background. Thanks for the session and we will be back with a really interesting and very exciting presentation on stream one, plastic keynotes at 11.
See you then. Thank you.
