Hello all, I am a newbie to the list. We have 2 female gerbils (just over 1 yr. old, sisters). About 3 weeks ago, we noticed that they had red discharge from their noses. We have had colds recently and were worried that they may have one also. They were not clicking or anything though. We took them to a vet who works with small animals. He prescribed tetracycline by drops twice a day for 2 weeks. Well, here is where things started going from bad to worse. We have never tried to "restrain" our babies. We quickly realized that we were not going to have an easy time of giving them their medicine. While we were dosing one of the sisters, she tried to kick out of my husbands grasp. We heard a sickening pop. She had broken her shin bone. This lead to a return trip to the vet. He set it and wrapped it. Of course she chewed it off, but the leg seems to be healing fine. This is not the real problem now. After this episode, there was no way we were comfortable holding them to force the tetracycline in them this way. Our vet did not offer any alternatives, although we asked. We did some reading on this site and the American Gerbil Society page (we are from North Carolina). We decided to discontinue the vets meds (they had gotten ~ 5 days dosing) and put them on Ornacycline. They have been on this for ~ 5 days. The baby with the injured leg is doing fine. No more discharge from the nose. Our other baby is still having some very light discharge, nothing wet, just a little caking on the creases of her nose. Last night when we picked her up, she made a new noise. Normally, she protests being put back in the cage by squeeking and holding on to my husbands shirt. However, last night, she made almost a grunting sound. When she made the sound, her nose/mouth moved. We listened and didn't hear any clicking. We believe that they had just woken up when we went to tell them goodnight. She stopped the noise when we put her down. Whe we picked her back up and tried to hold her to listen to her breathing she seemed irritated with us and started grunting again. I am terrified, we do not have children (human) but these are our babies! Does anyone have any experience with grunting gerbils? Could she just be stressed or have an allergy (causing the red nose)? Also, she has not had her exercise wheel since her sister broke her leg, could the noises be from a hurting tummy or weight gain, or is she just so bored she found something new to do? We are at our wits end especially since she is still eating and drinking normally, her coat looks ok (nothing a dust bath wouldn't help, we held off on this in case they had an allergy). I apologize that this message is so long, but I need more knowledge than I have currently (I don't know anyone else with gerbils.) Basically, HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anything would be wonderful!
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