Need help and advice!

[SRP]

Hi, need any help possible regarding our hammy's current condition.

About half a week ago our hammy, Pandy, had blood in his pee, we took his pee to the only vet around here that bothers with hamsters, according to test (I wasn't present at vet, was comforting Pandy) from vet he said Pandy's kidney was failing, not sure if that means kidney disease or renal disease since ever since this vet prescribed a spray before that had etonfenprox I've been iffy on him.

He prescribed some powder which is suppose to help the kidney and antibiotics, after the day since medication Pandy started being like himself again, but earlier today he peed blood again, and has been doing some stretching motion while holding his stomach in, like that few days ago.

Have asked vet about antibiotics and now he says it's for UTI, no mention before about it.

Is there anything else we can do to help Pandy? I've been with him the whole night trying to comfort him, he's only drank water once in the past 10 hours and eaten a few bits of food, peed only twice within then.

I've read a post here regarding diets for kidney issue, but is there anything else we can do? Not sure if we should continue giving him the antibiotics since I've read that can strain the kidney even more.

[SRP]

Hi, need any help possible regarding our hammy's current condition.

About half a week ago our hammy, Pandy, had blood in his pee, we took his pee to the only vet around here that bothers with hamsters, according to test (I wasn't present at vet, was comforting Pandy) from vet he said Pandy's kidney was failing, not sure if that means kidney disease or renal disease since ever since this vet prescribed a spray before that had etonfenprox I've been iffy on him.

He prescribed some powder which is suppose to help the kidney and antibiotics, after the day since medication Pandy started being like himself again, but earlier today he peed blood again, and has been doing some stretching motion while holding his stomach in, like that few days ago.

Have asked vet about antibiotics and now he says it's for UTI, no mention before about it.

Is there anything else we can do to help Pandy? I've been with him the whole night trying to comfort him, he's only drank water once in the past 10 hours and eaten a few bits of food, peed only twice within then.

I've read a post here regarding diets for kidney issue, but is there anything else we can do? Not sure if we should continue giving him the antibiotics since I've read that can strain the kidney even more.

So far he's barely been eating or drinking anything and mainly just sleeping, hasn't peed in for over 10 hours either, he's only ate the hamster soup, (consist of couscous, barley, and some veggies boiled in water then reboiled in new water) about 3-4 teaspoons

[cypher]

Blood in the pee is often a sign of a UTI & vets will often prescribe antibiotics in the first instance, UTI’s can take a while to clear up though & may even take more than one course to get rid of completely so it is possible that it’s too early to see results from that.
Hamsters kidneys to tend to be less efficient as they get older but I wouldn’t expect to see blood with this, another possibility to consider is bladder stones, that is something that would cause there to be blood in the pee so maybe talk to your vet about that.
There isn’t really anything you can do for hams if their kidneys are failing or not working efficiently although it is best to cut down on protein a bit & not give high protein extras as this does put a strain on the kidneys.
Have you tried tempting him to eat with things like porridge & ham safe baby food? They will often eat those when feeling unwell & off their normal food.
If he seems to be getting worse then I would talk to your vet again & see what they say.

[SRP]

Prior to this he did pee pretty often, which shouldn't lead to bladder stones.

I thought the other things also need to be reduced? Like phosphorus, sodium and maybe even potassium.

As of now his pee doesn't have blood, but it is fairly clear, sometimes nearly clear and sometimes a tint of yellow, as for his appetite, we've been giving him the hamster soup recipe on this forum, it had couscous, pearl barley and minced broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, veggies vary, he seems to be somewhat okay with that, but we can't give him that entirely or too often.

His hamster food mentions 11.0% crude protein and about 0.8 phosphorus, says to feed them 12g a day, not sure if that includes the stuff mentioned above, but as is he doesn't really finish all his food because he's quite picky on em.

Prior to this, we used to give him a decent amount of veggies and fruits.

Veggies we give him (about 2-5 pieces a day, no bigger than half a pinky in length, usually in rotation):
Baby corn
Bean sprout
Broccoli
Carrot
Cauliflower
Corn
Cucumber
Pak choy
Sweet pea

Fruits we give him (also about same as veggie size, once every 3 days, sometimes a little extra but too often):
Apple
Banana
Jack fruit
Mango
Papaya
Pear

And he also got hamster treats pretty often, but since then we've stopped all those minus the bits of veggies in his hamster soup because we're unsure if it'd do him any more harm.

We also used to give him a drop of animal vitamin everyday and a small strip of tube probiotics for animals, haven't continued since the week ago with blood in his pee, also gave him a small bit of boiled chicken every 3 days for the past few months, we thought he might've been protein deficient because prior to this he has some fur loss, especially at his lower back.

I've read somewhere celery is good for kidney disease, and he seems to like it, but didn't give him too much cause can't find any other sources clarifying the info.

Would like if possible to find out if the other stuff we give him is safe for kidney disease, couldn't find much consistent info regarding em.

[cypher]

Just because he was previously peeing normally doesn’t rule out kidney/bladder stones.

Ideally you would reduce those things particularly phosphorus with kidney disease or failure but it just isn’t possible to give a hamster a diet that supplies all the nutrition they need if you do that & you don’t know that he has kidney problems so by doing so you could do more harm than good. Any major changes like that should only be done with the advice of a good vet.
You can’t do it feeding a commercial hamster mix & you really need to know quite a lot about their nutritional needs before making any changes to the diet.

Has he always been on the same food? 11% protein is much too low, if you were sure he had kidney problems &/or he was old for a ham then that might be ok but hamster food generally should be around 18-20% protein.
What food is it you use?

Until you are sure about a diagnosis, it still may just be a UTI I would go back to giving him veg daily, this will help keep him hydrated as well as supplying extra micronutrients.
Hams shouldn’t have fruit as it’s too acidic for them anyway so I would stick to veg.

Does his food have added vitamins & minerals? Most commercial mixes do & if you were giving him additional vitamins (which I’m guessing contained minerals as well?) this in itself could be a problem as he may have been getting too much of certain nutrients which can be harmful for them.

I would be very careful about trying to change his diet until you are certain of a diagnosis & know for sure that his kidneys are the problem, for now I would be more inclined to continue the antibiotics & concentrate on giving him a good quality nutritionally balanced diet as that may do more for his health & ability to fight of an infection if it is a UTI.

While he’s on antibiotics & at least for some time afterwards he needs the probiotics so don’t discontinue those, just be sure to give them a few hours apart from the antibiotics.

I only just saw the bit about fur loss at the end there, there is always a slight chance of Cushing’s disease with fur loss that begins on the lower back but from the little you said about his food mix I would be more concerned about poor nutrition & try to correct that first & see if there’s any improvement.

[SRP]

The kidney disease was diagnosed through his pee, he is currently about 1 year 10 months old so we thought his age may play a factor.

The other hamster food we used to give him contained about 15% crude protein I think, but doesn't ever finish all the food we give him, he tends to pick up specific pieces and ignore the ones he doesn't like, before this we also filled his food more than the designated amount on the packet.

This would the second time he has had UTI, he had one about a year back, while there wasn't any blood, his pee was brownish yellow, but during then he still did everything normally, and it didn't seem like he was hindered by it at all, compared to now where he seems much more worn out, and occasionally he does a weird stretch while pulling in the right side of his stomach, less so at times especially when being petted, which seems to me that his stomach region seems to be uncomfortable to him at times.

He usually leans more towards fresh stuff, he really likes boiled veggies.

Alot of people seem to give fruits their hamsters, thought it was something they'd normally eat fine if they're healthy?

I'm not sure if his balding is due to Cushing's disease, his back end balding is from him scratching it very roughly, he doesn't have a sagging abdomen, he had some balding issues before, which the vet checked for mites, didn't find any but gave us a spray which contained etonfenprox, which didn't help him at all and he went much balder then from scratching because of the spray, we had to bathe him then and comfort till he settled down.

His fur grew back on its own after that, some months after he started scratching it out again, which led to being the way it is now.

[cypher]

It does seem a bit unclear if the vet is saying that he has kidney disease or if his kidneys may just be functioning as well as they could which isn’t uncommon in hamsters of his age.
What you may have seen with the previous UTI could have still been blood but more dilute, I wouldn’t rule out a UTI yet. I still think it is possible that it could be kidney stones but I’m guessing the vet would need to do an xray to confirm that although I’m not sure of the diagnostic procedure.
One thing you have to bear in mind with kidney problems is you can’t just apply things that may be appropriate in other animals or humans as their nutritional needs & physiology is very different, the best you can do is to keep protein levels down but not too much as overall health will then suffer.
If he’s lost fur & is scratching a lot you could try giving him some extra flax seeds & evening primrose oil which may help.
As far as fruit goes, it’s ok to give an occasional piece as a treat but do think about a hamsters natural diet, seeds, shoots, roots & insects mostly, they don’t have a digestive system that copes well with acidic foods.

[Pebbles82]

Hi. Is he a Syrian or dwarf hamster? Diet can vary depending which but there are similarities. He is technically elderly now and it is normal for hamsters to start gradually getting organ failure, particularly the kidneys. So this is part of the ageing process and not something that can be cured. It could be called kidney disease but I’d say it is age related kidney disease. They start drinking and peeing more usually but can be fine otherwise. Hair loss can also be age related (and diet related). Blood in the urine could well be a UTI and the only way to know is complete a course of antibiotics and see if it clears. If it doesn’t then it could be something else. But you do need to finish the course other wise the bugs can proliferate and infection gets worse. It’s the same as with humans - always complete the course. When things start to improve that is the antibiotic fighting the bugs but it is a fine balance so if antibiotics are stopped too soon the bugs fight back even stronger and can become immune to the antibiotic - and there are only a couple of antibiotics hamsters can have.

You mentioned you are sort of nursing him. Is he seeming unwell he generally? Or is he fairly active and doing normal hamstery things?

I agree with Cypher that over complicating diet can cause more problems. All they really need is a good hamster mix and one tiny piece of veg daily. Thumbnail sized. Not too much. They can of course enjoy the odd treat - a bit of fruit or chicken or a bit of porridge etc. But again just one tiny piece. I wouldn’t give the soup - it might put everything out of balance.

11% protein is prob ok at this age but in his first year it would be very low and lack of protein can cause hair loss and other things.

Which mix is it because a lot depends on the quality of the mix and other ingredients. Don’t worry about him picking bits out and leaving bits - it’s what they do - our hamster never eats all his mix and he’s perfectly big and healthy. Most of what they take from the food bowl they just hoard - and then eat from their hoard. So you never really know what they’re eating but they tend to eat what they need.

So a good muesli mix helps as it gives them variety- picking things out is their foraging instinct. But if you’re worried you could give a couple of pellets of an all in one mix like science selective - as well. I just scatter 2 or 3 pellets every 3 days or so as well as putting the usual mix in the bowl.

I tend to start giving soft foods when they’re older if they start losing weight as that can sometimes be toothache and them struggling to eat the hard mix. So teeth need checking as well to make sure the bottom front ones haven’t got too long (if they get too long they can’t open their mouths properly to eat).

If they don’t get enough hard foods then their teeth can get too long as well. They need the hard food and chews to keep their teeth worn down. But if they have toothache and can’t chew hard foods then they do need some softened food as well (but still put the hard mix out as well as they like to pouch it).

So I’d stick with his hamster mix, also put out some softened hamster mix (either his usual one or science selective) in a separate little dish. You just add a tiny bit of boiling water to it and leave it 10 mins or so to cook and go soft. That way he’s getting all the nutrients he needs. Then put out a tiny bit of fresh veg daily as well. The occasional treat like a tiny bit of apple or banana (for a Syrian but not for a dwarf - they need to avoid sugar).

Has the vet tested for diabetes?

[SRP]

The vet said he had excess protein in his pee, and ruled it as his kidney was failing, unfortunately the vet doesn't seem to care too much to go into detail, after talking it over with the other person taking care of our hammy, he only came to that conclusion because of excess protein, we were giving him quite a bit of veggies and a piece of chicken every 3 days prior to this, so it could be the reason of excess protein, the vet didn't bother to ask about his diet or advice on what he should he, which doesn't help at all.

All he said was to continue taking the dialysis, we're going to take his pee to test again soon, is there any way to tell, if his protein levels go down, if it was due to his own kidney's doing or the dialysis? Are there any downsides to taking dialysis powder? Which was what the vet prescribed.

And how are those veggies in terms of protein/phosphorus/sodium/potassium levels? If our hammy does have failing kidneys, would they still be okay for him or should some be omitted?

Edit: few hours ago our hammy, Pandy, seemed to have been willing to come out and run around, he seemed quite active then compared to the past few days.

[Pebbles82]

There are a number of things that can cause protein in urine including infection, pregnancy, diabetes and cancer as well as kidney disease.

If he’s more active it sounds like the antibiotics are working. It could just be a urine infection or other infection. It might be an idea to get another opinion from another vet. I am not sure what the dialysis drugs are but it is unusual for hamsters to be treated for kidney failure. The usual signs are fluid retention/bloating.

There is no harm in giving him the odd bit of chicken once or twice a week plus an 11% protein hamster mix. But I’d keep it simple with what you feed him. Softened hamster mix, dry hamster mix, a tiny bit of veg daily and the odd treat of fresh food.

Are they electrolytes the powders? That could do more harm than good if it was kidney failure in my opinion (but I am not a vet but am a former nurse) as most drugs or additives will be more toxic as the kidneys can’t process them properly (and his kidneys won’t be as good as they were now he’s older). It’s also why some hamsters can be quite unwell when taking the antibiotics but improve when they’re finished. Even so he needs the course to finish to clear what could well be infection. Taking probiotics afterwards can help.

Those veggies sound fine but not all at once. One small piece of one each day. They always like fresh food but they need hamster mix as well.

I wouldn’t use added vitamins either - if you can get hemp seeds you can give a pinch of those every day - on a separate dish. They are supposed to contain all vitamins and minerals and hamsters like them and tend to lick them up.

Which hamster mix is it? Also is your hamster a dwarf or Syrian. Best not to give fruit to dwarf hamsters due to the sugars - dwarf hamsters are prone to diabetes. You can get ketodiastix and test for that yourself. Syrians can get diabetes but it’s less common.