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Old 10-28-2018, 03:14 PM   #1
Murmel
Newborn Pup
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Germany
Posts: 16
Unhappy What should I do?

Hey here is Sasha and Murmel,

so I don't know how much you will be able to help me right now, but for the future I will know for sure how to react so I am going to make this threat anyway:
Today I had a friend over. Around 6 pm my hamster Murmel came out of his house, as he always does as of late since it has gotten colder. Guess he's an early bird. We talked a little about hamster care and animal care in general, and suddenly we heard this sneezing noise from the first platform. And there Murmel was, holding his paws together just beneath his nose and sneezing two or three times.
My cage is in an area that isn't right in the spotlight, so when he came running over to the side of the cage I took my flashlight and shortly pointed it at his nose.
I could see a small amount of wetness on the lower part of his nose and immediately called the emergency number from an animal clinic nearby.
I let the vet on the other side of the line know what I had witnessed, and asked what I should do, if I should take him immediately and come over or if I should handle the situation differently.
It was sneezing and some glistering in the flashlight's light that I witnessed, he is running around eating and drinking. Sometimes he gets sleepy all of a sudden. I thought I saw him trembling a little just a while ago (not sure tho) so I put a warm blanket over his cage. I turned on the heater as well, but I am worried I'll let it get too warm, since my blood circulation is very bad, which makes it hard for me to determine how warm a room actually is. Plus, my room is naturally not cold at all, therefore I am working with leaning the window open a little and closing it again. Back to the main question though.
The vet listened to what I was talking about and he said, I should keep him warm and wait till morning for now, so I could take him to a vet that is closer to where I live, if that vet has time for him. If the symptoms worsened I should go to the clinic immediately though.

The clinic is further away, it would be a lot of stress and it is very cold outside right now. He has not been sneezing for a while now, is occasionally walking out of his house and around the cage. He is cleaning himself, burrowing in his sand bath and sand pit, is chewing on his toys and has been drinking and eating. I am worried though. I have a vet right around the corner that I could try calling tomorrow morning, which would probably be a lot less stressful for Murmel, plus he is running around normally, does not have diarrhoea or watering eyes, only his nose looked damper than normal on the bottom.
I am using straw pellets as a small layer of substrate underneath quite the layer of Carefresh paperbased bedding. The pellets are pretty good quality and the bedding is fairly new as well, so I doubt that it is a reaction to too much dust, dirty cage (I spot clean, too) or an allergy, even more so because I have been using the same brands for a few months now and he has been loving them.
What I am basically asking is: Should I still take him to the clinic now? Or should I wait until tomorrow to call the vet that is closer?

Thank you for reading this confused post!
With kind regards,
Sasha
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Old 10-28-2018, 11:18 PM   #2
cypher
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Default Re: What should I do?

How is Murmel now? If his behaviour has returned to normal & he isn't sneezing now it doesn't sound as though you need an emergency trip to the vet, if he does sneeze more then it would be good to take him in & get him checked but if it's stopped you could just keep an eye on him & see how it goes.
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Old 10-29-2018, 05:24 PM   #3
Murmel
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Default Re: What should I do?

Well, he hasn't been sneezing more often, and I think his nose isn't as "runny" as it was yesterday, meaning not as damp, I think warming his cage and leaving him alone helped. Still damper than usual, and he does sneeze from time to time, but it has not gotten any worse for sure. I did get an appointment at my vet for tomorrow and I am going, just so there won't be any risks and to avoid the slight sniffles turning into something worse. He has been running to me like normal today and was not shivering like he was that one time yesterday. I like to think he's doing a little better today and has more energy, but then again, I am no expert. So, in short, he is bevahing fairly normal, but he is still sneezing from time to time and his nose still does look a little damp. So observing him instead of rushing to the clinic was probably for the best and I will take your advice to heart, too for future cases as well.
Thank you ��
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Old 10-29-2018, 10:28 PM   #4
cypher
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Default Re: What should I do?

Hope he gets on alright at the vets & it isn't anything to serious.
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Old 10-31-2018, 04:54 AM   #5
Murmel
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Default Re: What should I do?

Update: So, we were at the Vet. She knows my little dude, and he is pretty genious at remembering people, so he was actually more curious than stressed when we came in, even stuck out his head to say hi. She took a good look at him and said that he had in fact a runny nose, so she gave me antibiotics for the next week, one drop a day, and asked me to give an update on friday. I love that specific vet, because they actually care for every animal they get and everyone working there is so sweet. She gave him the first drop of Antibiotics and was actually off searching for a treat afterwards because he.. really does NOT like antibiotics haha. the moment she came near him with the medicine, he smelled it and ran to me burrowing his head in my sweater, like "if I can't see you you can't see me either!"
I decided, because he gets stressed a lot if given to him directly, that I would give him the antibiotics in his morning baby food. It's been a routine between us since the heatwave in summer, so he knows when he gets it and is most days already waiting. He was really excited, ran out and licked on the food. Then shook himself and ran back into his house. He REALLY hates antibiotics, have I already said that? So I moved the spoon closer to his house and just talked to him. In the end, he did clatter his teeth grumpily, but he ate everything, most likely only to get his healthy treat I always give him afterwards. But he ate it, so I am relieved I can give it to him that way.
Since his sniffles weren't bad yet, he should recover soon. Thanks for your replies, really )
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Old 10-31-2018, 05:06 AM   #6
cypher
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Default Re: What should I do?

Good to hear things went well at the vet & I hope the snuffles will soon be gone.
Poor guy hating his antibiotics so much but a bit of baby food does make it a lot easier!
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Old 11-07-2018, 12:56 PM   #7
Murmel
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Default Re: What should I do?

I think I maybe should give another update on Murmel's condition.
The Antibiotics didn't actually do a lot to help him. I gave them to him for the prescribed 7 days and nothing really changed. So I started researching for (it suddenly came to me) allergies. It had not really crossed my mind as I was using Carefresh and had only just changed the bedding, but while I was looking at him on monday morning (meaning 2 am monday morning because I am a hella night owl) I was wrinkling my forehead to the fact that his wet nose was clear. So it didn't seem bacterial or anything like that. He was also excessively scratching himself and throwing himself on his cage decorations more than usual. And that's when I suddenly got the idea to look up allergies. I also hopped onto a German hamster group on facebook, and one of them told me that their Carefresh was actually very very dusty when they got it, maybe because it had been stored for months. They didn't know. But what they did know was that changing the bedding had helped getting their precious furball back to health.
Well, the next day I was hardly able to concentrate during lectures, and afterwards ran right to the next petshop, bought hemp bedding and immediately changed his cage's Carefresh to Hugro Hemp. The rest of the night before was just a nightmare, I could hear him sneezing, but the antibiotics weren't working and it was 4 am in the freaking morning by then. I wanted to go out immediately to get the new bedding, but at 4 am where you gonna find an open pet shop? In the end I slept maybe two hours and now I am sick myself. But, after changing his bedding (it was really dusty, which shocked me because my room is fairly dust free and the bedding hadn't seemed that way when I had just put it inside his cage), he has now stopped scratching himself and his nose has not been runny. It's damp around the edges, but I read in another thread that that is normal as long as the dampness is clear and not runny, which it is.
Yesterday he was sneezing really loudly like 7 times in a row which made me jump up from my sofa and nearly get a heart attack (I think I'm gonna be really paranoid about sneezing from now on), but he was really going at gis grainless vegetable/ hay snack and shredding it to tiny tiny pieces, so he most likely just got something in his nose, because after that he didn't sneeze like that again. Plus I looked at his nose right after, it wasn't runny, it was clear.
Forever gonna be paranoid though, really, I was so worried I actually had a really bad stomache ache and couldn't eat.
I hope he is doing better now! I have been watching him closely. Just about half an hour ago he was falling asleep on his platform (he does that a lot) and I noticed him twitching around while falling asleep, but that's probably because his body was relaxing and he was only balancing on one foot, so he was losing his stance like when we sit in a train, fall asleep and our head falls onto our chest, kinda like that.
So, I think he is actually doing a lot better, he is eating and drinking normally, runs in his wheel for like 20 minutes straight, he takes treats energetically and doesn't make any noises while breathing, so it doesn't seem like he has respatory problems. My vet asked me to report tomorrow one more time so I will do that, but I hope he keeps continuously getting better and better.
If I just think about the fact that I left him in that dusty bedding for two weeks, I feel so bad, damn! Will use hemp from now on!
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Old 11-07-2018, 06:04 PM   #8
Ponymad2104
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Default Re: What should I do?

So glad to hear he's doing better! Clever you for figuring out it was allergies!

Like you I always assumed carefresh and other paper based substrates were good for hamsters with allergies
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Old 11-07-2018, 10:05 PM   #9
cypher
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Default Re: What should I do?

Good to hear he's doing better with the hemp substrate, it's not that uncommon for hams to react badly to carefresh, it can be quite dusty & it isn't paper based it's wood pulp.
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Old 11-08-2018, 06:04 PM   #10
Murmel
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Default Re: What should I do?

That's what I found out as well! A hamster owner who had cared for maybe 5 hamsters in the past told me how great Carefresh was, since I am slightly allergic to hemp and how good it was supposed to be for your hammies as it was, according to them, paperbased and dust free. So thank you for your backing up information and telling me that Cypher, and thanks for your reply Ponymad!
On a side note, Murmel is still shaking his body a lot from time to time.
I noticed yesterday as well that his house seemed really dusty and gross, I don't know how I didn't see that, maybe because I was preoccupied with the bedding and him being unwell. It had shed hair inside and bedding pieces of carefresh stuck in its walls. Can't have been there for a long time, since I checked when I changed the bedding and it wasn't like that. I tried cleaning it today, but then noticed a NAIL(?) that had been randomly stuck into the house wall, just across from the entry way, that had probbaly been making its way out for a while now until it could finally be seen. It looked too dangerous to put back in, even if I didn't want to stress him, so I put in his new house already. He was still shaking his body and grooming himself a lot, so I hope that I have eliminated all sources of danger in his cage with it. If it does not help either, I'm changing the sand bag.
Because besides that, I got no other ideas. he seems bothered by something in his fur if anything, and he did sneeze before changing his bedding, so the last idea I'd have is either the house is still an issue, his sandbath or because he is restless. He tends to shake his fur when he is restless as well.
I hate that everything is just coming together right now. The house, the bedding, but.. The house had to go, I let him run in his outside area for a bit while changing it, as kind of a compensation because he seemed more energetic today and as if he actually wanted to go, so I thought it might be less stressful that way than having a hand come from above, take all your things and put that new thing inside your cage...
Well, he wanted to go, he didn't want to hop back into his transport box at all, so I let him go around for about an hour until he was finally ready to go back, also just to see how well he was doing.
Just hope I didn't overstress him with all this, he is eating fine and drinking, but he did sneeze like 4 times.
Hasn't sneezed once the last 2 hours though, so maybe I'm just paranoid as hell right now. I can hear nomming noises from inside his new house.
For the future as well though, are there any other things you know of, that hamsters are more prone to react badly to? Maybe some that you wouldn't easily find on the internet searching for it?
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