Snotty Squirrel

[vol4wild]

Hi everyone,
We received a baby squirrel at our hospital on Sept 17th. He was about five weeks when we got him, and was a total failure to thrive baby. He was raised by the donor on Esbilac and had a lot of problems growing and developing. For a few weeks, it was very difficult to get weight on him. Now, he is a mostly normal squirrel of 500 grams. He is a little odd looking and also a little mentally dull. Our issue with him right now is that he seems to have this constant runny nose. We've had him on Baytril so many times, we are hesitant to try it again. It seems to help a little, but when we take him off, he has a runny nose and is all snotty again! He sneezes often, and today my co-worker mentioned he was open mouth breathing a little bit. He has good energy and eats very well, but for some reason we can't get rid of whatever this is. Do you guys have any suggestions for something different to try?
His diet mainly includes: nuts, various fruits and veggies (peppers, tomato, carrot, greens, apples, oranges, grapes). Also, his teeth are in good shape and are not maloccluded. We've raised so many squirrels here and have 2 that live here permanently, and we've never had this issue before. Do you guys think it has anything to do with his poor development? Any insight?

[CritterMom]

Examine his teeth first. If the lowers are too long they can eventually punch through the roof of the mouth - which is right by the sinuses - and even when they first start touching it can trigger sniffles that have nothing to do with illness.

If they are good you may want to run some films of his head. I have a friend with one that landed on her face and things got pushed around in there enough from that that the result if a snotnose most of the time - the damage showed up on x-rays. Since you don't really know what happened to this baby, it is possible that it, too, sustained damages during the initisl fsll from the nest that aren't immediately apparent.

[Jackie in Tampa]

you can try benedryl if you think it might be allergies
or Bactrim/SMZ-TMP if you think it's sinusitus
or a combo of doxy and baytril if you think it may be mycos
(sounds like a respitory thing with the mouth breathing)
metro and amoxy or baytril if it could be a fungal like aspergilliousis {sp}

or like Crittermom mentioned... double ck those teeth...
do a few xrays...ya never know...she may already have odontomas going on...
if fungal, you may see some organics in the lungs on the Xrays...
let us know what you find please.. good luck all

[SammysMom]

Not that this is an answer to the drippy nose but for his overall health a diet change looks like a must. He really needs some rodent block added in and probably some nuts taken out. The veggies look great! The rodent block is what should be the mainstay if he is no longer taking formula. There are several different brands of block that people use. Personally, havig a fusspot myself, I use Henry's Healthy Blocks. You will see them often referred to here as HHB's. They can only be ordered online as they are made in small orders and not commercial. You can find them at http://henryspets.com/
Good lucky with your stuffy nosed boy!:grouphug

[vol4wild]

Not that this is an answer to the drippy nose but for his overall health a diet change looks like a must. He really needs some rodent block added in and probably some nuts taken out. The veggies look great! The rodent block is what should be the mainstay if he is no longer taking formula. There are several different brands of block that people use. Personally, havig a fusspot myself, I use Henry's Healthy Blocks. You will see them often referred to here as HHB's. They can only be ordered online as they are made in small orders and not commercial. You can find them at http://henryspets.com/
Good lucky with your stuffy nosed boy!:grouphug

Thanks! I forgot to mention we do feed rodent blocks (Harlan Teklad), and he probably gets one nut a day if that (sometimes we don't have any here). We are going to look into a different combination of medication for him.