Does my rat have a tumor?

i got this rat and thought it just had a brocken or deformed leg, and on its back it had a lump (i thought it was just its bone sticking out were the leg had brocken, because there was also another hipbone on the other side.) last night the lump had suddenly brocken, it was ***** and had a scabby lump in it. so i put some calendula on it (it is a herbal ointment used for cuts)
today the big scab is gone down, but there is still a flat scab.
tonight i bathed the wound and put the calendula back on because it seemed to work.
i was going to take her to the vet but cos its inproving i decided to wait.
is it a tumer?, i have had the rat a couple of weeks and is only still very young. the rat has not been around any other rats so has not been biten.
the lump is on her saw leg and her leg now has muscel waistidge.(sorry can't spell)

please
please
please help!

p.s. if i get is surgically removed, how much will it cost.(i am shot of pocket money)

thanx
Answers:
it doesn't sound like a typical tumour, they usually don't break the skin and more commonly occur around the lymphatic areas ie. neck. it sounds more like a blister or cyst like growth. they would be muscle wastage either way, if it was big enough to break the skin it would have been quite sore so it probably wasn't using the leg much.
either way a vet trip would be a good idea to make sure it isn't a disease of some kind that may keep occurring. surgery in rats is always very expensive because they're small and fiddly. there's also a high risk they won't survive mainly because their lungs are so small that they don't always cope with the anaesthetic.

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http://www.rmca.org/articles/tumors.htm...

hi good luck with your rat, i have 2 rats my self so i know how attached u can get to them (they are so cute).

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Pretty much every rat will have a toumor its in life (after year one).

Yours sounds like its a cist though. Tomours dont have scabs on them. It sounds like yours had an open wound, and when it heal something got in that infected it. (i work at petsmart, i see this all the time).

What we do is put a warm compress on it, and pick the scab off. They we gently squeeze the puss out (the rats are usually very good, and let us do it). We do that for 3 days untill the cist is gone.

It will cost about 200$ to get it removed if it is cancer.