scab (?) on penis

[sue.silber]

I just got a baby squirrel to rehab, 35 gm, eyes closed, severely dehydrated and malnourished. He had severe diarrhea, but is pretty much over that now. I have fed him formula alternated with pedialyte with flagyl. He appears to have a scab on the tip of his penis which I've tried removing with gentle rubbing with a moist cotton ball and application of antibacterial cream (it was red, but is now normal color). He doesn't look like he is peeing when stimulated, I think due to the scab. Any ideas?

[CritterMom]

I just got a baby squirrel to rehab, 35 gm, eyes closed, severely dehydrated and malnourished. He had severe diarrhea, but is pretty much over that now. I have fed him formula alternated with pedialyte with flagyl. He appears to have a scab on the tip of his penis which I've tried removing with gentle rubbing with a moist cotton ball and application of antibacterial cream (it was red, but is now normal color). He doesn't look like he is peeing when stimulated, I think due to the scab. Any ideas?

You need to get the scab off. place a warm, wet cotton ball or similar light against the penis and just hold it there for several minutes - as long as you can. Then start working on it with a dry qtip and see how much you can roll off. If it sticks badly, soak a little more - it softens the scab. Once you get all you can see off, VERY GENTLY roll the penis between two fingers. Wipe away any more scab. Make sure he is well hydrated and put him on paper towels that will allow you to see if he pees on is own - and keep gently stimulating him to pee.

What formula are you feeding? How long has he been on the pedialyte? It really shouldn't be used for days and days. You can sub in plain water.

Watch him to see if he is nursing on himself and thus making this worse. It is often seen in starving babies - they will "nurse" on each other and even on themselves. If he is you will need to take steps to prevent that.

[Chickenlegs]

CM pretty much covered what you need to do to help him. I’m going to add something from a vet that treated the penis of a baby from last year. He had been suckled by his sister. It took forever for his poor boy parts to begin healing. When his penis did heal, it skinned over the tip. When he peed his penis “blew up” as the skin was preventing the urine escaping. Vet had to open the end. He said to use hydrogen peroxide solution to clean off the tip. HP kept the skin from healing so fast. His penis was able to heal from the inside out and the tip didn’t grow over. I kept it slathered with antibiotic ointment and kept gauze wrapped around him for a couple of days. He was seperated from his sister, given warm water baths, HP rinses and after 4/5 days there was no scabbing and he healed up just fine. Just mentioning this as I’d never seen such a thing. I figured if it happened to one baby, it could happen to another.

[Mel1959]

I, too, had a similar situation with a boy being suckled by his brother. When the penis ballooned with urine I was able to gently express the urine out. Alternatingly soaking with a warm wet cotton ball. I had to constantly monitor to be sure the scab didn’t reform.

My baby boy lives in my yard. His penis never did go back to looking completely normal. It still has a slight red tint to the tip. :grin2