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Old 02-15-2023, 11:51 AM   #1
Drudrat
 
Join Date: Feb 2023
Posts: 1
Exclamation Poorly Siberian Hamster

Hi everyone!

I have been a regular (silent) user of the forum but have created an account now hoping for some help if possible!

I got the sweetest siberian hamster, named him Hercules, in June 2021. I have no history of him as he was found in a park by a member of the public and brought to the vets I was working at the time (I'm a recently qualified vet nurse).

He's always been the healthiest of the boys, but about a month or so ago I started noticing that his scent gland looked crusty and a bit inflamed. Tried to use warm water and clean it with a cotton bud but no luck. So took him for an exam (1st feb) by a vet colleague of mine and we decided on pain relief (metacam) and antibiotics (baytril).

About 2 days after I noticed some diarrhoea stain on his cage, so stopped metacam as can have gastrointestinal effects, I was unfortunately traveling abroad the day after and he was staying with my vet friend that examined him initially.

We decided to continue with the baytril, but unfortunately his diarrhoea did not improve so another antibiotic was added, this time sulfatrim. This was done on the 8th of February. He didn't improve and started getting off his food too and dropped weight from 39g to 33g. We started with Fluids (saline) with glucose as well as some probiotic powder. As of 12th of feb we stopped with the antibiotics to see if they were the cause of the diahrrea.

Weight stabilised at 35g,but unfortunately today gone back to 33g.

His current symptoms are: weight loss, inappetence, hunched posture while walking/sitting, squinting eyes, quite rough looking fur.

Things to note: His cage had been fully cleaned on the day he went for his little staycation, used all the same stuff besides that this time cleaned with a solution of 50:50 white distilled vinegre and some of his old bedding was mixed with new to preserve his scent in the cage. He has always been unfortunately on mainly muesli diet, I have started adding a increased amount of veggies on his diet from end of Jan, and also tried sprouts once/twice right at the start of his antibiotics. He hated the taste of baytril so I was mixing it with some food (yogurt, baby food, fresh fruit juice) as attempts to not having to force medicate him. Veggies and sprouts have fully been stopped since the 12th of feb, but yogurt is still continuous to help as a probiotic function too.

I know I am from the clinical side of things, and it's the complete opposite to ask owners for advice with medical things, but unfortunately I do not have much clinical experience with hamsters at all and we're a little bit stuck on what to do next.

Has any of you ever experienced anything similar?
I am leaning towards antibiotic induced gastrointestinal upset, but it's been going of for so long that I am now afraid it has developed into something more serious...? and I'm scared of keeping him off antibiotics too long when he now might need them to fight whatever is going on

Any help would be greatly appreciated and thank you so much for reading it all through!
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