Please help! Hamster bleeding from bottom?!

[Buddha120]

Hi there, this is my first time posting here, I'm really concerned about my hamster. When I took him out of his cage today I noticed a sticky brown substance coming out of his bum.

At first I thought maybe he just had some diarrhea so I put him back. A few hours later however, I noticed blood stains on the wooden platform of his cage and immediately took him to the vet. The vet seemed unconcerned, she said that it seemed to be a bacterial infection and prescribed some antibiotics to be given twice a day for a week. In truth, he doesn't seem particularly ill, he's still very alert, and doesn't seem to be in pain or in any kind of stress, aside from walking a little bit over to one side. His stools also seem to be fairly solid and he doesn't seem lethargic. However, when I was trying to find out what might be wrong with him, bleeding from the rectum seemed to be very serious and almost always a symptom of wet tail? I'm beginning to doubt the vet and I'm just wondering if it's possible this could just be a symptom of a standard bacterial infection and not wet tail?

Thank you in advance

[Rsclio197]

Hi and welcome to HC

Sorry to scare you but I lost my little ham Suzi last month with similar early symptoms. She did walk slightly off balance (I thought she'd hurt her leg) but it turned out she potentially had an internal mass/tumour that had burst just inside her rear left leg. She started with bleeding but seemed well in her self until little blood became lots of blood. She was in the vets 3 times the week before she passed away to replace lost fluids from the blood and she was on anti biotic. She became so weak though and died from dehydration in the end. It could've been pyometra (we opted against xray due to old age) so I'll never know 100% what the problem was, but she did have that lump inside her leg.

So I'd say check your boy to see if there is any lumps as this could be the cause of him walking funny. Was the vets you took him to confident with hams? Exotic vets? How old is your boy?

[shawniyatwain]

I agree have a good feel for any lumps, one of my hamsters unfortunately passed away from a tumor that caused this kind of bleeding.
Also sounds like wet tail could be equally likely.
I know it can be costly but it might be worth trying another vet to be on the safe side, never hurts to get a second opinion

[cypher]

How old is your hamster? Bleeding can be a symptom of several different things, it could be an infection or wet tail (that's more common in young hams) & if that's the case then the antibiotics may well help but I would expect to see signs of diarrhoea if that was the case. In older hams tumours are more likely & you may or may not be able to feel a lump depending on how advanced or big the tumour is. Another cause is prolapse of the rectum, usually with this you will see a red bulge around the rectum but if this was the case then the vet should have spotted it.
How confident are you that your vet has experience with hamsters? If you're not happy it's always worth thinking about going to another vet.
Monitor your ham carefully for any changes in health or behaviour, I would continue with the antibiotics & see if they do help at all, sometimes meds can take a while to make a noticeable difference & he may need more than one course if he does have an infection of some kind.