Re: Eye popping out of head

by CinnamonPearl Thu 15 Feb 2018, 12:04 pm

The fur method is arguably acceptable, but.... Okay, here's the thing. Let's say you have a mouse who is nearly dying from some sort of terrible respiratory disease, like a pneumonia. Your mouse spends all their time sitting in their nest gasping, and uses all their strength to get up just to eat and drink. Euthanasia wouldn't be a bad option, but the disease is curable and you want to try. How are you going to medicate this mouse who does have a chance at life, when they are too weak to groom properly and too weak to eat for the most part? What if you have a mouse suffering from cancer who needs her pain medications, but she's since lost interest in grooming herself? How are you going to keep her comfortable and not completely suffering in pain while you ease her through her last few days of life?

This is why I personally stand against methods of medication such as putting the medicine on food or on fur or something of the sort. Firstly, you will not have much way to tell whether all of the medicine is being ingested. Those dosages are designed for a very specific reason, and an animal will not get everything they need from half-hearted administration. You also have to consider- what if the type of medicine you are giving is not an oral medication? Will the fur and food method work if you are using an eyedrop medicine like gentamicin? It won't. And thirdly, bringing back the point I was making earlier: you are a pet owner. And as a pet owner, emergencies are going to happen. Tragedy is going to happen. And you cannot be learning how to medicate a mouse when they are on death's row just because you chose to duck and dodge and avoid doing so for the year or two you had them prior to this emergency. It's dangerous and somewhat irresponsible.

NOW, I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else is irresponsible because something terrible happened to your mouse and you're scared. I would be scared too! I've made the decision myself to stop medicating a mouse in an emergency because my instincts told me that there was nothing more to be done (and these instincts of mine have proven right with every mouse death I've experienced except for one, so I trust them a good deal). But we are responsible for our pets, and that responsibility includes learning how to take care of their physical health in every which way. I know people have used food and fur administration with success, but for the reasons I've listed here, I'll never be able to get behind it.

I hope you understand!

by susb8383c Thu 15 Feb 2018, 4:54 pm

Cinnamon, what I recall (it's been a month now) is that I started her out hidden in a towel and tried to make her escape hole small enough so that only her head fit through. I didn't actually squeeze her body, she tried herself to squeeze through the hole.

Sweelings, what I meant by 'these mice'--they were originally in a big feeder tank in a pet store, so they were probably all interrelated to start with (I think males and females were separated at that point but they probably all started out mixed together). Then the artist put them all together for two days, so the babies that resulted probably had parents that were close relatives. A lot of these mice haven't done well. Besides the female who died during meds, 6/8 of the males have all died in a few months. Some had URIs and were on meds, some didn't appear to have anything wrong with them and they just died. One male was on meds but was doing well. We tried to transfer him to another foster home, tank and all so he didn't have to go to a new cage. She picked him up here and brought him into a heated car, drove 10 minutes, brought him inside, and he came out of his hideaway and died. Very sad.

One other female died who didn't appear to have anything wrong with her. Another two of the females are tiny--one runt sized and one peanut sized. My peanut girl (I named her Woodstock) has thinning fur and isn't nearly as active as she was at 3 weeks. The vet said she looks dehydrated. I've been trying to get her to drink, but it's hard. I give her watery baby oatmeal whenever I can. Sometimes she eats a lot of it, sometimes hardly any. But her fur continues to thin. I have 3 water bottles in her tank so she can take her pick, but she doesn't drink much.

Anyway, I'm digressing.

by CinnamonPearl Thu 15 Feb 2018, 5:31 pm

Awww, how very sad. Sad

I really hope the ones left pull through okay! Best of luck with them.

by sweetlings Thu 15 Feb 2018, 8:18 pm

Cinnamon, I understand your stance here completely. I think for me, the fur method is a temporary solution and not a permanent method for administering medicine. I agree that exclusively using the fur method to avoid syringe administration will come back to bite you in the long run, but I firmly believe in using this method as a 'breather' or as a last resort, if it's the difference between groomed-off medicine and no medicine whatsoever.
Like you mentioned, though, this really isn't a viable solution in extreme cases! I appreciate your very thorough breakdown of the issue Smile

Susb I know exactly what you mean about your girl squeezing herself rather than being squeezed. When the incident happened with Margot's eye it definitely felt like she was so stressed out by the medicine that she would rather hurt herself escaping than accept the syringe.

I'm so sorry to hear about the rest of the bunch. My thoughts are with you and with Woodstock especially - I really hope she perks up!

by CinnamonPearl Thu 15 Feb 2018, 8:44 pm

Oh, I definitely agree that the fur method is fine for taking a breather, or if the person giving the medicine is having trouble! I'm glad you understood my point about it not being long-term, not everyone does. Smile

In the end, we just want our mice to be safe, and sometimes alternate administration methods are what help with that.

by Sponsored content