Female lage soft lump

Question
Hi Sandra,

    Hope you can help, I have a hooded female rat name "Tink" and she has developed a quite large lump about the size of her head almost! It's located kind of right behind her front right foot and behind (near the short rib on a human) and off to the side. It developed quite rapidly in only maybe a 2 days or less. It dose not seem to bother her at all even after feeling it and examining it etc... I don't think it's a tumor because it's very soft and feels like there is quite a bit of fluid inside like an abscess. I also don't feel anything hard in it.

  I read allot of your past answers / and did quite a bit of research on other sites in which I'm leaning towards an abscess, and would like your opinion on it. Should I try and aspirate it, and use saline solution and Neosporin to treat it after? And what other tips, tricks, advice you might have since I know you like to pop those suckers =)

Thanks in advance,

Eric

Answer
Hi Eric

That cracked me up about me liking to pop abscess.  Yikes. It sounds almost perverse, doesn't it?  LOL!

Two things. First, hopefully it is an abscess since it came out of the blue and got to be the size of her head that fast. (WOW! If it is an abscess and it gets any bigger, you would be safe to wear goggles, gloves and possibly a clothespin on your nose if you attempt to pop that yourself! :0
Second, I would not try to poke any holes in it :0   What you can do is try and I do stress "try" because I know it can be a tough task to get a rat, especially an energetic nosey female, to hold still, but if you can try to hold a warm compress on it or a sock or sack filled with rice and nuked in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up a bit, it may get even softer and come to a head. The head may or may not be filled with pus. Sometimes it looks like a sunken in crater with a black scab over the top. Chances are she will work at her herself. After the warm compress, gently but firmly grasp the base of the mass. You must get your fingers under the base though so if you do get it to burst the bacteria doesn't go inward and comes out, like we are anticipating.
Don't keep at it if she freaks. Even just trying to express it sometimes gives the abscess in question just enough pressure under it to get it to ooze on its own. They usually do burst on their own or with the help of Tink working on it.

Once it does finally burst, you can take some cotton and saturate it with plain water and wring the water out of the cotton ball over the hole where the abscess was. Saline may sting when the hole is so fresh.  I did not realize this and although its good to use and better and safer than peroxide and even betadine, it still burns because (weird as I am) tried it on myself on an open wound after using it on my boy Santana last month when his abscess popped open. He yelled and ran and ran like he was hurting and I tired the saline and I even yelled OUCH! myself!  We use it at the clinic but I think I will advise people to dilute it even more than it is.
Anyhow, pack the hole with neosporin and keep her busy so she doesn't lick it out. It only need to be on for 5 minutes and the antibiotic properties start to absorb.
Check the mass again to see if it filled up again. If so, repeat the process.
If it continues to come back or gets bigger without popping of course, its Vet time.

It does sound like an abscess, but ironically it is one of prime locations for a mammary tumor although they start out small and they continue to grow  at an astonishing rate of speed.  I am hoping its an abscess though.
How old is she, btw?

Thanks for writing...keep me posted ok? I am curious to see what this is.

Sandra