Hi! This is Sarah.
You may remember my posts regarding my Tyzzers outbreak and me having to hand
rear my pups which died anyway as they were too young.
Well for over a week I have had no problems, all of my Gerbils have been
really shiny and healthy and my 2 Males that were infected are almost
completely back to normal.
I had been advised to put all my gerbils on Tetracycline but when I went to
my vet she only had Baytril and only treated the poorly males.She said to
keep the sick ones isolated from the healthy ones and practice scrupulous
hygiene, which I have done.
Unfortunately when I was checking my gerbils this morning I looked in the
tank of my pair who have 10, 15 day old pups and found that the smallest pup
had been chewed on his back and was bloodstained.This set off the alarm bells
as when my last female was ill she chewed her pups feet and tails, so I
picked up the mother.Guess What? She had diahorreah and is looking
ruffled.She looks nowhere near as ill as my mother who died when I discovered
her so I phoned the vet straight away.She said Ornacycline(?) is an American
drug and she can't get hold of it but agreed it sounds like Tyzzers disease,
she said she would check what drug she could get and phone me back.
I was not phoned for 4 hours but she said she can order me some antibiotic
in, it is the same sort of thing but it is called Tetracyline but with
another word in front of it which I couldn't quite catch.She says I need to
treat all my Gerbils for 30 days but she does not know when the drug will
arrive as she doesn't usually carry it, the earliest will be Wednesday.
Is there anything I can do in the meantime for this Mother? I have the
enclosure isolated and with a hot water bottle and loads of extra bedding.She
is still allowing the pups to nurse but I am wondering what will happen if
she doesn't make it.Will the pups be able to survive?They have their eyes
open and are eating oatmeal I put in for them but are still only tiny.The
litter I tried to handrear last week all died after 3 days of me feeding them
and I was just wondering whether it would be kinder to have my pups
euthanized than let them die off slowly like my others did.
Thanks for all your help
Sarah
