Degu in very bad shape

[y00nm]

Hello. A week ago my degu got very sick. He is about 1 years old. One day i forgot to close the window and i think he got a cold, his brother is fine. He started to sneeze, stopped running, eating and only stays in one spot, his eyes are shut most of the time. I took him to a vet, they gave him a lot of vitamins and boosted his appetite and told me that if he does not eat either he stops fighting for his life on his own or we will need to put him to sleep forever. After the vet he started to eat, i bought him good quality food but since that day he stopped eating again and went back to his previous stage. Is there a way for him to survive or is this the end? Please help. It hurts to see him this way

[teemu]

What have you been offering him as food? For acute situations like this, giving him any sort of a thing that he is willing to eat is very important. For example, nuts or seeds. He also needs fluids. Do you have Critical Care at home, or can you acquire it quickly? If not, you can try to give him baby food (something without much sugar in it), or mix some oats with water to make a porridge. If you have a mortar and a pestle, or other ways to very finely crush something, you can grind seeds and nuts into a fine flour, and mix water into that to make a kind of seed gruel that degus usually find really tasty.

If he starts eating any of these, then that is very good, and you should offer him more of these. The most important thing right now is to make sure that he gets food and water, and the exact type is less important than the fact that he eats at least something. Do hurry with this, because an animal this small will start suffering quickly from dehydration, and degus need food in their system or their digestive tract can suffer complications.

If he does not eat voluntarily at all, you will need to syringe feed him. Again, using something quite runny (the baby food, or watery Critical Care if you have it, or the seed gruel, or anything else), load up a syringe and hold him gently but firmly and put small amounts of the food into his mouth at a time. This will not be an easy process, so if you need to do this (i.e. if he refuses to eat anything by himself), write back here and I will give you advice on how to do it.

It is possible that even if he agrees to eat something solid, that you will need to give him water with a syringe. Again, I will give you more advice if this seems necessary.

Report back in any case after you have tried to get him to eat.

[moletteuk]

All good advice from Teemu. I wish you luck with getting him to eat.

[deguconvert]

Any update on your degu?