Lilly Update
Lilly in the Sock Pouch O Fun. (We should all have one.)
Well, vet was spendy but effective (I think/hope). And pet store trip yielded three delightful youngsters. Pictures and details to follow. Which brings me to tonight's challenge: getting medicine into my merson (mouse-person), Lilly.
I can't manage to scruff mice and force liquids into their mouths with a syringe. That is too stressful on both me and them. So I take the (usually) easier way out of mixing it into food and letting them eat it that way. Normally I mix meds into Ferretvite (a tasty vitamin paste they like) and either leave that in a bowl, or put it on a cheerio. (My meeple are all about the cheerios!) If they still won't eat it, worst case scenario is that I smear the ferretvite on their haunch, and then they lick it off, because one must have a clean Mouse Suit.
But...I don't have Ferretvite right now. All I have is their favorite snack, peanut butter. Can I put the sulfa drug in the peanut butter? Yes, turns out it will blend in, and Lilly was quick to eat it off her cheerio at noon when she was in her carrier after a long morning at the vet's. Tonight for her second dose, I repeated the pb thing. I put her and medicated snack alone in the carrier so her sister wouldn't swipe the treat and eat it instead. But for an hour, Lilly did nothing but run around and spectate out the clear plastic walls and stop now and then to obsessively groom - and completely ignored the yummy pb&cheerio treat.
And I really don't want to smear peanut butter on her little mouse suit. It is so much more sticky than Ferritvite! That just seems wrong.
Finally a light bulb slowly flickered on over my head. I guessed she was just too distracted with the carrier environment to settle down and eat anything. After all, she doesn't spend all that much time in a carrier! So, I swapped Betty out, put her in the carrier and returned Lilly to the cage they live in---and put the treat in her usual snack area. Sure enough, within a minute she found the treasure, hauled it into her igloo, and was chowing down on stealth medicine!
Then I returned Betty to the fold, and everyone was happy.
I'm so glad I finally figured out what the boggle was, and was able to put her at ease enough that her natural grazing instincts kicked in and got her medicated. It's not always easy to interpret animal behaviors, and I'm not the sharpest observer in that regard, but I am determined to do my best by my girls, so Yay, Team! I will figure Lilly out, and make sure she gets everything she needs.