Pansy's Abdominal Wall Muscle Rupture

Pansy was a 6 year old mammoth donkey jennet, bred for a May 2005 foal. She went 4 weeks overdue (13 months from date of breeding) before going into labor. This was her first pregnancy.

About a week prior to foaling, Pansy developed an odd swelling on one side sort of in front of her udder and a little higher up the side of her tummy. We just figured it was probably edema from her udder filling, and after a few days it went down in size so that by the time she foaled it was only a small bump.

When Pansy went into labor, she was not able to expel the foal on her own, and the vet had to help pull it. That went pretty smoothly, and we thought we'd have a live foal, but unfortunately when we got the foal out we discovered that the front half of it's ribs on the left side were broken. The foal never took a breath or responded.

Pansy seemed to recover quite well, and within a few days she was back to her normal lively, and sometimes bratty self.

After Pansy foaled, I left her udder alone so that it could dry up, but things didn't seem to go quite right. Her udder shrunk like it should, but at the same time the other swelling came back, on both sides this time. We thought maybe it was just part of her body adjusting and drying up her udder, so just kept an eye on it. But the swelling just didn't look normal for a drying up udder to me, and after 3 weeks the swelling was still not going down in size, so I took her down to the vet clinic Friday to have her checked out.

They examined and ultrasounded her, and found that she had a rupture in the abdominal wall muscle on both sides. She had a smaller tear on one side with just fluid in the swelling bubble. They could palpate the bubble and feel the rough edges of a tear on that side. The swelling on the other side was larger, and they couldn't get up far enough to feel any tears there, so they ultrasounded that side and found that she had a larger tear with intestines down in it.

Pansy was feeling well, but the vet said there wasn't really anything that could be done to fix it, and she'd eventually get an impaction there. So I had her put down this afternoon. As hard as it was, I figured it was the responsible thing to do, and there was no point in prolonging her life a few more days or weeks just to put her through the misery of an impaction when I could spare her of what would eventually happen anyway.

From what I have found out, it sounds like this doesn't happen very often. It is the result of a weakness in the abdominal structure that can be either genetic or the result of some other cause. While Pansy's pregnancy brought on this rupture more quickly, with the weaker abdominal structure Pansy may have eventually developed a rupture over a longer period of time even if she hadn't been bred.

Photos (click small image to view a larger image)

5/14/2005 - Pansy's due date (12 months from breeding)
5/16/2005
5/31/2005
6/4/2005 - These photos where taken when I first noticed the swelling. I had checked on Pansy several times throughout the day and evening, and hadn't noticed it then, although usually I was standing on her left side when I checked her udder, so I could have missed the right side. Late in the evening I went out to check on her once more before going to bed. I checked her as usual and everything looked find. Then I happened to look around her other side, and saw this big swelling.
6/8/2005 - About 8am
6/9/2005 - About 11:30pm
6/10/2005 - About 8am (15 hours before her water broke). The swelling on her right side had gone down to just a little bump and her udder had filled quite a bit.
6/10/2005 - About 8pm (3 hours before her water broke)
6/10/2005 - Pansy was in labor when I went out to check on her about 10:45pm. Her water broke about that time. She was unable to deliver the foal on her own, and the vet came out about 12:15am. The foal was positioned upside down, but did have both front feet and nose coming forward. The vet and I had to help pull the foal, and I believe it was delivered around 12:30am or so. The baby was born dead, and never took a breath or responded. We found that the front 1/2 of the foals ribs on it's left side were broken (a birthing injury), but other than that the vet didn't see any reason why the baby shouldn't have made it.
6/29/2005 - Swelling came back a few days after foaling and still hasn't gone down, but udder size has gone down. In the photos with blue markings, the areas circled in blue are where the swelling was.
	Notice in this photo how much Pansy's teats and the back part of her udder had dried up compared to the photos on 6/10/2005. That is what I found really odd about the theory of the swelling just being her udder drying up. I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff, but it seemed to me like if her udder was really having that hard a time drying up, the back half of it would be swollen, too. But it wasn't.