The Curious Case of Applesauce

[starrylight99]

My Campbell's hybrid dwarf "Admiral Applesauce" (Apples, for short) has been to three different vets over the course of three weeks, for respiratory problems. His symptoms are a bit odd, and I was looking for some ideas as to what the problem could be. He is currently on his second full course of antibiotics.

Comments

[socaltrash]

ohh noo! i dont have any experience with this so i can't be much help, but my boyfriend said "what if he just has asthma like a human?" i don't know if animals can have that or not.

& i will check out your videos! i put up lots of hamster videos, too under the username 'jaybeestarr'

[leaveittoweaver]

It could very possibly be an allergy. Have there been any changes to food or bedding?

[starrylight99]

Nope, no changes. But at this point, allergy seems most likely. Though finding out to what could be difficult. I guess we'll start with the bedding and go from there...

[leaveittoweaver]

Allergies can be developed, so yeah that's definitely possible. What diet is your hammie on?

[starrylight99]

He eats Hazel Hamster food and Mazuri lab blocks. He turns his nose up at all human food. We pick the corn out of the Hazel Hamster, and feed the sunflowers, peanuts, and pumpkin seeds only as treats.

[starrylight99]

No, we were using the chinchilla sand, and he hasn't had a sand bath since he started showing symptoms. The eco-bedding is supposedly dust-free, and we give him carefresh and plain unscented single ply toilet paper for nesting. This has always been the same.

If it is an allergy, which bedding do you think would be best?

[leaveittoweaver]

I second that, the carefresh can often cause some allergen issues.

[countbecula]

My hammy Gracie has this problem! The baytril worked for a little while but ultimately stopped working. We've found that removing ANYTHING that can create dust or small little fibreyness (toilet paper, sawdust, hammy bedding similar to cotton wool) has actually been the most helpful. Don't spray any aerosols near the cage either.

We use strips of jay cloths as bedding and wood pellets as a sawdust substitute :)

I hope this made sense...I've not slept yet!!

[starrylight99]

Yes this makes sense! We don't have J-cloth in the US, what do you think would be the best dust-free substitute?

[leaveittoweaver]

You could try fleece possibly!

[countbecula]

My vet told me that the best stuff to use is plain paper....so if you've got a shredder (or the patience to cut up strips) then you could try that?!

[theonlymeyouget]

Lily is actually like this too.

When I first got her, I had Carefresh left over from Riley (my hammy that had just passed). With him, I used either Carefresh or aspen chips and he was always fine. I was a little broke at cage cleaning time, so I picked up some aspen.

The next day, my little lady who, at the time, was roughly the size of a quarter sitting down, could hardly breathe. I thought "Oh crap, she was sold WAY too young [which she was], here's the respiratory infection" and rushed her to the vet.

Baytril didn't help. She tested negative twice for myco. Nobody could figure it out. It was like she never got worse... but she never got better.

Out of a hairbrained idea and went and bought a bag of Carefresh and changed her cage again.

She was fine the next day. She reacts to aspen. Who the crap reacts to aspen

[starrylight99]

No, hes never been tested. Not a bad idea. I think we are going to remove all the carefresh from his cage and see what happens. It's interesting that she gets sneezy after you clean her cage, because Apples' symptoms started back up again 24 hours after stopping the meds, which was about 24 hours after we also cleaned his cage...

[theonlymeyouget]

I honestly doubt that it is myco, but you never know. Wouldn't hurt to find out for sure in any case.

I just watched some of Apple's vids, and he is pretty much the mellowest dwarf I've ever seen. I can see why he's so special to you. Lily HATES taking medicine and it's a world class fight to get it in her.

There are some times when Lily sounds bad. But we've hit her with every antibiotic known to man, from Baytril to amoxicillin to doxycycline to a couple I can't think of right now, to something or other for parasites and nothing has helped her. It's almost to the point where it doesn't worry me anymore because 1) I've done everything humanly possible to do and 2) The next day she'll be fine again.

Several years ago I bred fancy mice, and one of my favorite males was one of Those Rodents too. Never sick WITH anything, yet sick all the time. He lived to be almost 3 and wheezed pretty much the entire time.

[starrylight99]

Haha yes he is incredibly mellow. He's so sweet and such a character. He's always good for a laugh. He likes the fruity taste of the Baytril, and the probiotic he's on must not taste too bad cause he'll take it out of the syringe too, but we have to really struggle to get him to take the Doxy. He has had a few wheezing/squeaking moments that last only 20 minutes or so, and then he's fine again. The one that really concerned us lasted about 3 hours, and that was when we got him to the vets the first time. He's never lost his good personality throughout the whole thing, though, which is really promising to us. His attitude is always perfect. Never lethargic, always eating and active, etc. He nipped at me for the very first time the other day, he was cranky because I woke him up to take his meds, and I think I scared him a bit. Didn't even hurt.