Whats the deal with dritail?

[SnuggleHam]

Iv heard various things about this product, Pet stores will often try and sell you dritail to prevent wet tail in hamsters.



The product description says..



" For diarrhea symptoms in small pets. Antibiotic formula contains 2% neomycin. Easy to give. Includes graduated dropper for hamsters and guinea pigs to lap medicine, or add to water. For: Hamsters, gerbils, mice, rats, guinea pigs. Suggested use: In water: add 3 tsp per 4 oz water daily for 7 days. By dropper (hamsters and guinea pigs only): 1-3 oz body weight: 8 drops daily; 4-5 oz body weight: 16 drops daily; 2 to 2-1/2 lbs: 24 drops daily. Treat for 7 days. 1 fl oz."



Now the actual wet tail disease is not just a case of Diarrhea am I right? Further more I have heard people say that dritail doesn’t do anything significant in preventing wet tail or stopping it once contracted.??



I think Id like to write an article about this for the website because from what I understand anyway the only way to cure wet tail is with more powerful medication that is provided my a veterinarian?



Its all kind of foggy, can someone clear this up a bit more for me?



Update

Well I take it that nobody here has a clue :P I posted about this on another fourm to see what people say, since I think id like to write an article about it. That is once I find more out about it.

[babyboos]

Diarrhoea is very common in hamsters for a number of causes - some of which can be fatal, namely Salmonella, Tyzzer's disease, Wet tail, and antibiotic-related enteriti. It can also occur following too many vegetables, or fruit for your hamster's dinner. Only for the later would I suggest someone use Dri-Tail. Please check out the British Hamster Association Journal articles (http://www.britishhamsterassociation.org.uk/publications.php#29)for more information on Wet Tail (http://www.britishhamsterassociation.org.uk/get_article.php?fname=journal/wettailpm.htm) itself, symptoms, treatment and prospects for the affected hamster.

[Emma]

I'm just wondering babyboos why you would recommend administration of an antibiotic for a dietary-related diarrhoea? I can't quite see the logic but my head is quite foggy at the minute due to spending the last three hours working on horse osteoarthritis I don't have my hamster head on.



I'll try and get my math's right and work out the dosages:



The BSAVA manual of exotic pets gives a dosage of 50-100mg/kg (so for say a 200g hamster that'd be 10-20mg) by mouth once daily for neomycin, or in drinking water at 0.5mg/ml.



I'm assuming that 2% means 0.02mg/ml (that might not be right). From my aromatherapy a drop tends to be 0.1ml, so the dose suggested for drops daily on the dritail bottle seems woefully inadequate (although I'm not sure how oz translate to g for the hamster's weight). There seems little point in giving it apart from to perhaps allow bugs to become resistant to neomycin! I can't work out if the dose suggested for drinking water is equivalent to 0.5mg/ml because I have no idea about tsps in oz of water.



It all seems odd to me as a foreign vet student! Have you asked a US vet about it?

[babyboos]

For those who haven't checked out the News Section yet Candace has finished her article

Please check it out Dri-tail and Wet Tail Article (http://www.hamstercentral.com/dritailarticle.htm)





Gosh thanks for pointing that out Emma. Please forgive me gang :oops: I am sorry if I have misled anyone into thinking I recommend this product - :twisted: I DO NOT :twisted: - I would NEVER EVER use it, but then it is not even available in Scotland thank goodness.

I was trying, unsuccessfully to convey that I do not think it has any merit at all in serious illness related diarrhoea, although if someone is unable to get an immediate vet appointment and has access to Dri-tail then they could use it overnight but it is in NO WAY A SUBSTITION for a more concentrated prescribed antibiotic, and an emergency visit would be preferable, though quite potentially costly, where possible.

If anyone has a hamster with purely diet related diarrhoea then this should be remedied by removing all fresh foods from the hamster and giving dry complete hamster mix only until the stools harden again. Fresh foods should be slowly introduced into the diet after a few weeks, and only a tiny bit every couple of days at that. I thoroughly recommend the use of a probiotic to help re-establish good gut flora and a prebiotic on an ongoing basis.

Dri-tail certainly SHOULD NOT BE USED AS A PREVENTATIVE, due to the reasons you state - it will do more harm than good utilised in this way killing off the bacteria that hamster's digestive systems completely rely on, which in itself could stress out the hamster actually promoting Wet-Tail :cry: