Post by Die Fledermaus on Feb 29, 2008 23:06:02 GMT -4
From the American Gerbil Society.
>> Hi Tom,
Sorry for the delay answering your questions.
The drawbacks with OTC tetracycline (ornicycline) are that you cannot regulate the dosage, and if the animal is too weak to drink, s/he will get no medicine at all. However, if there is simply no other way, then it is better than doing nothing, for sure. I would probably try to give the gerbil the ornicycline mixture in a syringe, spreading a normal day's drinking out over the course of day. Donna's book says how much a gerbil drinks per day: perhaps someone can say. With such a dilute medication one will need to be very careful of drowing a weak animal.
I have also heard that ornicylcine is no longer available in stores;
does anyone know? Is it a state-by-state restriction?
Regarding specific prescription antibiotics, my vet generally prescribes SMZ (SULFAMETHOXAZOLE) as a first course of treatment. It is very safe, very palatable, is not easily overdosed, and is sufficiently concentrated that it's quite easy to squirt the necessary dosage into a gerbil in one swift stroke. It requires twice a day administration for 10 days which for the highly distractible like myself is sometimes a challenge. It has generally been effective with respiratory infections and urinary tract infections, and it has saved several nearly-dead gerbils from bacterial infections.
However, I am noticing increased resistance to it for respiratory infections in my kennel, probably my own fault (see "distractible" , above).
In the past, my vet typically used chloramphenicol as a second-line
antibiotic but recently has begun prescribing ciprofloxacin. Cipro has
been highly effective for me so far and requires only a single daily
dose, a big plus.
He has never prescribed Baytril for my clan; I vaguely remember some concerns about using it in gerbils that he had, but I do not remember enough now to say. I can ask again next time I am there.
I have never used the nebulizer, but it seems like a useful tool. You
are certainly right that in very sick animals there is a real chance of
drowning them with liquid medicine. I am sorry to say it has happened to me although by the time a gerbil gets to that point I think there is very little hope anyway, so one might argue it is better to try. Still, if I had the option to administer antibiotics with a nebulizer to a weak, nearly unconscious animal, I would favor it over a syringe. An injection is probably the very best method at that point but I have neither the skill nor the equipment.
A squirrel rescuer once advised me to warm an animal up before
administering antibiotics in order to increase their effectiveness.
Based on anecdote I agree that this is a good policy.
Thanks for asking.
Libby <<
>> Hi Tom,
Sorry for the delay answering your questions.
The drawbacks with OTC tetracycline (ornicycline) are that you cannot regulate the dosage, and if the animal is too weak to drink, s/he will get no medicine at all. However, if there is simply no other way, then it is better than doing nothing, for sure. I would probably try to give the gerbil the ornicycline mixture in a syringe, spreading a normal day's drinking out over the course of day. Donna's book says how much a gerbil drinks per day: perhaps someone can say. With such a dilute medication one will need to be very careful of drowing a weak animal.
I have also heard that ornicylcine is no longer available in stores;
does anyone know? Is it a state-by-state restriction?
Regarding specific prescription antibiotics, my vet generally prescribes SMZ (SULFAMETHOXAZOLE) as a first course of treatment. It is very safe, very palatable, is not easily overdosed, and is sufficiently concentrated that it's quite easy to squirt the necessary dosage into a gerbil in one swift stroke. It requires twice a day administration for 10 days which for the highly distractible like myself is sometimes a challenge. It has generally been effective with respiratory infections and urinary tract infections, and it has saved several nearly-dead gerbils from bacterial infections.
However, I am noticing increased resistance to it for respiratory infections in my kennel, probably my own fault (see "distractible" , above).
In the past, my vet typically used chloramphenicol as a second-line
antibiotic but recently has begun prescribing ciprofloxacin. Cipro has
been highly effective for me so far and requires only a single daily
dose, a big plus.
He has never prescribed Baytril for my clan; I vaguely remember some concerns about using it in gerbils that he had, but I do not remember enough now to say. I can ask again next time I am there.
I have never used the nebulizer, but it seems like a useful tool. You
are certainly right that in very sick animals there is a real chance of
drowning them with liquid medicine. I am sorry to say it has happened to me although by the time a gerbil gets to that point I think there is very little hope anyway, so one might argue it is better to try. Still, if I had the option to administer antibiotics with a nebulizer to a weak, nearly unconscious animal, I would favor it over a syringe. An injection is probably the very best method at that point but I have neither the skill nor the equipment.
A squirrel rescuer once advised me to warm an animal up before
administering antibiotics in order to increase their effectiveness.
Based on anecdote I agree that this is a good policy.
Thanks for asking.
Libby <<
