Burnt small animals are trauma patients with many complications over them. There are many different sources of burn lesions: electrical, chemicals, direct heat, fire, fireworks, etc. A common cause of burn in small animals is the use of electrical heating pads during surgery or in cage hospital management.
The care of burn patient will therefore be divided into 3 stages:
From arriving to 36 hours
Early period: 36 hours after arrive to 5 days
Inflammation-Infection period, after the first week
Burn injuries are extremely complex, with compromise of respiratory, cardiovascular, dermatological systems, and require a proper understanding and management of physiology, endocrinology, nutrition and immunology status of the patients, to give them appropriate treatment.
Burns affect primarily the skin, and the degrees of injury are related to the depth and extension surface affected. The skin have many different roles in the normal physiology of the body: is the primary barrier against invasive infection, help to maintain the body temperature controlling the evaporation of fluids, adapts to aggressions or changes in the environment like pain, cold and heat. All these functions are impaired in burned animals and have been related as secondary cause of death.
Affected surface can be approached by burned body segments: Each forelimb means 9% each rear limb means 18%, head and neck 9%, Trunk and abdomen 18%. Burn depth has been classified according the degrees of injury:
Superficial or first degree involves the epidermis layer, partial-thickness or second degree involves the epidermis and mid to deep amount of dermis, and the full-thickness or third degree there is complete destruction of the skin and compromise structures of the subcutaneous.