giving medication technique

[degualot]

well giving antibiotics to by Degus is always a challenging task.

I'm having trouble with Bobby, He has an infection and I need to give him 2 different kinds of antibiotics, twice a day. It's proving near impossible.

I've tried every trick in the book, putting it on his favourite treat, putting a treat near the cage and quickly squirting it at his mouth or nose but he quickly wised uo to both those techniques. They're just to smart for it.

I think I might have to just use the safety hold on him, I already did it once on him at the vet today and I already feel guilty about that, his poor little heart was racing. well he needs to get his med, so not sure I have must of a choice left. what do you guys think?

[deguconvert]

I agree with you, hon. I think the safety hold is likely your only option. Poor little lad!! What kind of infection does he have?

[degualot]

It's an infected wound from the castration, it was slightly pussing, with a scab, it wasn't there a few days ago so it must have just got infected. Poor guy has no luck, Taco on the other hand has came out free of any infection and looks great. Looks like Bobby got the sort straw. Hope he gets better, don't want the infection spreading internally.

He's going to hate me for it, but later he's getting grabbed wheather he likes it or not, I tried to do it the gentle way with treats but this is all I have left. I'll have to make sure he gets some treats afterwards to make him feel better.

[moletteuk]

Have you tried putting it on different treats? I've had success using a slice of brazil nut, especially if I only put the meds on about half of it and offer it to them with the medicated bit away from them, so they still get the tempting brazil nut smell. Or maybe a strong smelling dried herb would work?

[degualot]

would the med, not just drip off the brazil nut. I can give it a try but would have to try it tommorrow.

[yasmin]

My vet provided liquid Baytril in a fruit/berry flavour that goos are supposed to love, but the only way I could get my degu Azure to take it was to slightly open a sunflower seed, leaving part of the shell on the inner seed, and then put one drop of Baytril on that. I then fed that to her, and she would take it and eat it, no problem. (Putting it on other food like dandelion leaves didn't fool her.)

She needed three drops, twice a day, so I would give her three or four (depending on whether it looked like she ingested all of the antibiotic) very small sunflower seeds each time. The vet said that the three drops was just a guideline and that the key was that she was getting about that much each time. I know that it was too many sunflower seeds to give a goo daily but the other option was her not getting her meds and that was worse.

My degu Lilac however drank the antibiotic right from the dropper. She's generally less picky about everything.

[degualot]

mission accoplished, found bobbys weakness, it's called ORGANIC WETABIX!!!!

Yeah,, take that Bobby... I just remembered I had some wetabix cereal in the cuboard and I thought hmm, it's tasty and it absorbs very well. So I put both drops of the med I got onto a little piece and gave it to the fella. He was hesitant at first but then he picked it up and ate the lot, i'm very happy. OK Wetabix is not ideal but atleast it's low in sugar and slow release. But if it works, then it works. Better than him not taking his med. I'm all smiles now, and I didn't have to resort to using the safety hold which is great because I hate stressing him out. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D