Possible MBD?

[WhistlingPete]

Hi! My petey is a ground squirrel, 5 years old. He hibernated from Christmas until a couple weeks ago, longer than other years but he went into hibernation later also.

He eats Henrys blocks daily but hasn't wanted the rat blocks since hes woken up. He's walking funny like a leg or his back is hurt.

He's been sometimes peeing and pooping while he's runnung around instead of going to his litter box and has had matted fur underneath. Three days ago while he was sleeping his actual penis was out, which I've never seen before. Two nights ago I decided to try washing his fur a little. He slept while I did which was odd. As i washed one side underneath, suddenly a lot of poop came out. Normal size and shape, but a lot. Same thing happened again when I cleaned on the other side. Maybe 25 or 35 little individual turds.

The next morning he was eager to come run around outside his cage. I watched where he went and realized a little bag of cashews had fallen out of my bag and he found them. I'm not sure how many he had eaten.

Tonight he was sitting on me and shaking. He doesn't seem to be in any pain but I'm worried it's mbd, especially with the other things going on. I gave him some orange, swiss chard, a henrys block, and a piece of a henrys peanut stix and he ate all of it since this afternoon.

I'm not sure if i should give him extra calcium since he's eating calcium rich foods. If he's having digestive issues I don't want to make those worse.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

[WhistlingPete]

Oh and I already adjusted his cage so he can't fall. Although even though his walking was off, he was xlimbing fine. Except tonight he wasn't so I moved things around. He was still climbing mostly okay but seemed to be working harder and slipping.

[WhistlingPete]

Update: I re-read the MBD symptoms and forgot about nails snagging on fabric. That's been happening the last couple days also. I trimmed his nails while he was hibernating but they seemed extra long then and now they do again. I'm clipping them as he lets me.

I went ahead and gave him half of a tums with a little avocado. It seems like there are enough symptoms of MBD that it's worth risking the digestion problems to get the extra calcium.

[Mel1959]

I don’t know anything about ground squirrels, but the MBD treatment won’t harm him if he doesn’t have MBD. You should follow the MBD protocol and give the recommended amounts and see if he responds. If it is MBD adding a heating pad to his cage, where he doesn’t have access to the wires to chew, might be helpful.

[CritterMom]

I am so glad to see you and Petey!! I will never forget you getting ready to perform a commando raid on your ex, convinced he had squirrelnapped Petey - who had decided to hibernate - in an old terrarium??

He is getting quite old. I think bumping up his calcium might not be a bad idea at all, especially given his latest escapade with the cashews.

[WhistlingPete]

Ha! Good memory! I can't believe how long I've had Petey. This summer I got married and accepted a new job in Iowa so Petey and I made a cross country trip together.

Any thoughts on how much calcium you'd give? It's been 4 hours since I gave him the tums. Generally he gets about half what is recommended for other adult squirrels based on his size. I'm holding him now and he's doing the teeth chattering type of vibration but not the one he was doing last night that felt like it came from his body.

[WhistlingPete]

I don’t know anything about ground squirrels, but the MBD treatment won’t harm him if he doesn’t have MBD. You should follow the MBD protocol and give the recommended amounts and see if he responds. If it is MBD adding a heating pad to his cage, where he doesn’t have access to the wires to chew, might be helpful.

Do you know if there's a healing reason for the heat or if it's more about comfort if they're in pain?

[Mel1959]

Heat is more for comfort if in pain.

[CritterMom]

OK, so that would be 250-300mg per day for the MBD protocol.

First, we need the strength of your Tums. Turn to the BACK of the bottle - you are looking for info on how much elemental calcium there is per tablet. It is not the milligram size they advertise on the front. Ideally you want to spread the calcium out across many small doses through the day.

[Nancy in New York]

OK, so that would be 250-300mg per day for the MBD protocol.

First, we need the strength of your Tums. Turn to the BACK of the bottle - you are looking for info on how much elemental calcium there is per tablet. It is not the milligram size they advertise on the front. Ideally you want to spread the calcium out across many small doses through the day.

The tums 750 strength contains 300mg of elemental calcium.