Rat enucleation

Re: Rat enucleation

mariette asselbergs — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:20:21 GMT

"I remember a story (urban veterinary legend?) about someone sending a nasal turbinate biopsy off to the lab and getting a result back of "grey matter""

Amazingly enough you can easily take brain biopsies of cortical material without any harm. We used to do it in goats and sheep and cattle to diagnose heartwater (Cowdria ruminantium) and cerebral Babesia in live animals Mozambique and Nigeria. So, no urban myth probably....

Mariette

Re: Rat enucleation

Gillian Mostyn — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:04:13 GMT

I think the term is 'jammy sod!'

Re: Rat enucleation

Mark Rowland — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:29:47 GMT

I once did equine liver biopsies and managed to get liver (ragwort poisoning), Intestine (redworm damage) and lung tissue (COPD) what amazed me was that I got pathology in all 3 tissues. The pony was fine (apart from all the s**t that was wrong with it).

Re: Rat enucleation

Utlendigur — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:24:12 GMT

I remember a story (urban veterinary legend?) about someone sending a nasal turbinate biopsy off to the lab and getting a result back of "grey matter"

Re: Rat enucleation

nikki — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:50:18 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]

[quote user="nikki"]there did seem to be quite a bit of fat round the back of the eyeball [/quote]

That would be its brain, Nicola!

[/quote]

dont joke - i did have a minor panic that it was brain! i do assume it wouldn't be alive if I'd taken out half its frontal lobe via its eye socket though!

Re: Rat enucleation

Michael Woodhouse — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:40:52 GMT

[quote user="nikki"]there did seem to be quite a bit of fat round the back of the eyeball [/quote]

That would be its brain, Nicola!

[quote user="nikki"]was running up my scrub top and sitting on my shoulder by this afternoon[/quote]

ugh *shudders*

Re: Rat enucleation

Mark Rowland — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:05:19 GMT

nice job well done.

Re: Rat enucleation

nikki — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:02:52 GMT

thanks for the advice. op seemed to go ok - there did seem to be quite a bit of fat round the back of the eyeball but otherwise all seemed comparable to a cat just in miniature. was v glad for the eye kit which has all the kit in miniature. rat seemed to recover well - was running up my scrub top and sitting on my shoulder by this afternoon. have kept it in overnight, hopefully home tomorrow.

Re: Rat enucleation

Edward Jones — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:53:42 GMT

I was quite surprised how easy it was in a guinea pig. Perhaps the smaller the species the easier it is... (death-grip restraint on a hamster, anyone?!).

Pain control is probably more difficult than the surgery.

Re: Rat enucleation

Utlendigur — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:38:12 GMT

Ditto. We have a couple of "small furries" kits with small scissors, mosquito forceps, mini foster gillies etc - so much easier. We also try to get everything that might be needed ready to hand to save hunting for it - keeps GA time short. The main problem we've found is with the mask being so near the op site - a cut-off rubber teat works quite well.

Re: Rat enucleation

Rachael Winder — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:49:43 GMT

My experince of this (n=2) is that the trick is having really small instruments and getting right the ga,analgesia etc. The enucleation was same as for any other animal, just fiddly. Good luck :-)

Re: Rat enucleation

Mark Rowland — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:13:07 GMT

Its actually quite straightforward, do it as a cat in miniature, the eye will pop out easily, just be careful with traction of the optic nerve. Control any bleeding with pressure or lyostypt. Make sure you do the pain relief, theres a free download on exotic animal analgesia on my website (link in my sig). Keep it in a day or so for analgesia and supportive care. I would use opiod/NSAID and gas as my protocol for anaesthesia. Please post if you have any specific questions.

Goodluck, let us know how it goes.