Plus-Hex CLINICAL
oil ’ are readily available for purchase on the internet , but often these oils are insufficiently ozonated to have therapeutic effect . Sufficiently ozonated oils become colourless and thicken to the consistency of petroleum jelly ( Uysal , 2014 ). Ozone is unable to be stored , and must be generated from oxygen , then immediately bubbled through the oil for several hours for sufficient ozonation ( Uysal , 2014 ), so genuine ozonated oil is expensive to manufacture and costly to purchase . The product degrades in UV light and must be sold in opaque or darkened packaging .
Figure 5 . Day 32 – Healing almost complete . The distal phalanges of digits 2 and 3 are missing .
to , and protective of , the juveniles . The injured juvenile showed no signs of pain or infection , and no issues with locomotion .
Discussion
There were three key causes for concern during the treatment process . First , that systemic infection could cause death . Second , that maternal stress or handling of the juvenile could cause the animal to be rejected . Third , that healing may not be sufficient to allow normal locomotion when the animal reached adult weight .
Infection control is challenging in the zoo setting , particularly in cases like this where the family group needs to be kept together to avoid maternal rejection . In this case , the animals could be isolated in the inside section of their enclosure . This approach is similar to that described by Samantara et al . ( 2013 ), where a chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes ) had to be treated for a cheek abscess but could not be separated from the group without affecting the stress levels and appetite of conspecifics .
Ozonated oil is created by bubbling ozone gas through unsaturated vegetable oil ( such as olive oil ) to create a gel with ozone in suspension ( Anzolin et al ., 2020 ). Ozonated oil has beneficial effects on wound healing due to its antimicrobial properties , moderation of inflammation , debridement effect , stimulation to angiogenesis and promotion of wound cicatrisation ( Anzolin et al ., 2020 ). Topical application of ozonated oil on acute cutaneous wounds in guinea pigs was shown to accelerate wound healing relative to the application of ordinary oil or no treatment ( Kin et al ., 2009 ).
Care was taken when purchasing the ozonated oil for use in this case . Many products described as ‘ ozonated
Maternal rejection of the offspring was a serious concern . Stress ( such as that caused by keepers regularly catching offspring ) is a primary cause of maternal rejection in zoo animals ( Thomson et al ., 2010 ). Capybaras are known to practise infanticide when encountering young from another group ( da Cunha Nogueira et al ., 1999 ), so there was a possibility that the juvenile might be injured or killed by its mother if she did not recognise it as her own . If the mother had rejected the juvenile , a decision between hand-rearing and euthanasia would have been made . Factors in this decision would have included the conservation value of the species , time and resources required to hand-rear the juvenile , and the likelihood of its successful integration into a capybara group .
Defensive behaviour by the mother towards keepers – including lunging – meant that the offspring had to be removed from the enclosure , treated quickly and returned promptly . Precocial caviomorph rodents use olfactory clues to recognise their offspring ( Tang- Martínez & Congdon , 2016 ). The concern was that the smell of humans , chlorhexidine gluconate and ozonated oil ( although it did not have a strong scent ) would cause the mother to reject the juvenile . However , capybaras also rely on auditory cues to recognise their offspring ( Lord , 1994 ; Barros et al ., 2011 ).
When the juvenile was returned to the enclosure , the mother at once sniffed it , responding with vigilance behaviours ( flaring nostrils , wide eyes , erect posture ) previously seen by keepers as precursors to lunging or fleeing . However , once the juvenile had vocalised , the mother relaxed and touched her nose to its nose – a behaviour indicating intimate recognition in capybaras ( Lord , 1994 ).
Although the juvenile showed normal gait on release , it is difficult to ascertain future potential effects on the animal once it reaches adult weight . There is the possibility of long-term issues resulting from unequal weight distribution . However , many mammals have thrived after full-limb amputation ( Forster et al ., 2010 ). Of more concern is the loss of webbing around the toes , which could affect locomotion in water when access to a lake is given in summer . Both potential issues will be monitored across the animal ' s lifespan .
Volume 37 ( 4 ) • September 2022
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