does Baytril work for clicking??

[Critter_Queen]

So, now that my little female is gaining weight (20 grams in the last 48 hours... ) and has mostly solidISH stools (again ) she has started to click when she breathes this morning.

I've had her on Baytril once per day at .05 cc since Tuesday morning (so three doses so far).

I've contacted my vet and mentor but until I hear back from them I would like to hear from you all...

[island rehabber]

So, now that my little female is gaining weight (20 grams in the last 48 hours... ) and has mostly solidISH stools (again ) she has started to click when she breathes this morning.

I've had her on Baytril once per day at .05 cc since Tuesday morning (so three doses so far).

I've contacted my vet and mentor but until I hear back from them I would like to hear from you all...

It worked beautifully for LB's clicking....I did have to re-dose him 4 days later, though, as he started up again. Be prepared.

[Critter_Queen]

GREAT! That's what I was hoping you'd say! I will be prepared to re-dose her if needed. The vet gave me way more than I will need and said it would be a good drug to have on hand for future use. Gotta love it when they give you your own personal drug supply! LOL!

[rippie-n-lilgirlsmom]

Uh CQ we are getting our fair share in the last couple days!
I hope that straightens out the problem for you.
I am thinking a mini vacation after this week is in order.

[Critter_Queen]

What's a vacation?? You mean you actually get to take time away from the craziness??? LUCKY! LOL!

Yeah, I'm ready for a break. This year I've taken in eight squirrels, four have died to date, and one was apparently temporarily blind for several weeks...and that doesn't count the Kestrel, the baby birds or the dozen baby mallards I've done this year.

COME ON WINTER!!

[Secret Squirrel]

GREAT! I will be prepared to re-dose her if needed.

I just have to ask......
When I give antibiotics it's for a duration of time 7-10 days for pnumonia AKA clicking. Why are you only administering one drop and waiting to see what the outcome is?

[Critter_Queen]

Where did you read that?? I'm giving her .05 cc per day for 10 days, once a day... Did I typo somewhere that I missed??

E-gads...I would worry about me too if that's how I was doing it!

I meant re-dosing if she either doesn't get better or it comes back after the 10 days of treatment...

~ whew ~ don't scare me like that! LOL!

[snakegetters]

There is some debate about this due to the fact that Baytril has some chemical properties that cause it to precipitate or suspend in solution pretty easily, but we've had good empirical results nebulizing enrofloxacin to treat respiratory infections in reptiles. It's easy to build a small animal nebulization chamber out of a Rubbermaid, a nebulizer and some plastic tubing. We multipurpose our nebulizers as anesthesia chambers by hooking them up to the isoflurane gas instead of the nebulizer.

In herps, the pharmacokinetics of Baytril administered orally is very close to the numbers when it's administered by injection, at least after 24-48 hours. Which is a good thing, since enrofloxacin is an extreme irritant when injected and will cause sterile abscess.

The injectable form of Baytril can be used for oral dosing, and it can be cost effective to purchase the cattle injectable form which is 100mg/ml rather than the dog and cat injectable form which is 22.7 mg/ml. Don't inject the 100mg/ml form in anything smaller than a cow, and don't dilute for oral administration until you're ready to give the dose.

I do not know how squirrels respond to enrofloxacin in the various forms it can be administered in, and I left my Carpenter exotic veterinary drug manual at work.

[snakegetters]

I've had her on Baytril once per day at .05 cc since Tuesday morning (so three doses so far).

Is this a compounded oral suspension of Baytril or are you using the standard Bayer dog/cat injectable 22.7 mg/ml as an oral dose? How many milligrams of the drug is in one CC of the suspension you are using? .05 cc can be a totally different amount of drug depending on whether you're using the 22.7 mg/ml, 100 mg/ml or a custom compounded oral suspension.

Dose for herps on this drug is from 5 to 10mg/kg usually at 24 hour intervals. What's the squirrel dose in milligrams per kilogram?

I am also wondering if manual suctioning/coupage/"lung washing" is a technique usable in baby squirrels to remove a fluid buildup in the lungs. We do it in reptiles frequently, but they have a heck of a lot of non vascular lung space and mammals are a whole different ballpark. For herps we'd often start by nebulizing with acetylcysteine (Mucomyst) to help break up the mucous.

[island rehabber]

Is this a compounded oral suspension of Baytril or are you using the standard Bayer dog/cat injectable 22.7 mg/ml as an oral dose? How many milligrams of the drug is in one CC of the suspension you are using? .05 cc can be a totally different amount of drug depending on whether you're using the 22.7 mg/ml, 100 mg/ml or a custom compounded oral suspension.

Dose for herps on this drug is from 5 to 10mg/kg usually at 24 hour intervals. What's the squirrel dose in milligrams per kilogram?

I am also wondering if manual suctioning/coupage/"lung washing" is a technique usable in baby squirrels to remove a fluid buildup in the lungs. We do it in reptiles frequently, but they have a heck of a lot of non vascular lung space and mammals are a whole different ballpark. For herps we'd often start by nebulizing with acetylcysteine (Mucomyst) to help break up the mucous.

The standard chart dosage used for wild baby mammals for Baytril (Enrofloxacin) at 22.7 mg/ml is calculated at 10 mg/kg....a 125-gram squirrel, for example, should get 0.05ml BID....which is REALLY hard to get right, by the way everybody, unless you get a .5cc syringe.
I have never read or heard about using suctioning on a squirrel....for that matter you never intubate a squirrel either, so I suspect there is an anatomical reason for this.

[Secret Squirrel]

Sorry Critter Queen.....didn't mean to alarm you!! I read this incorrectly!!! My bad... !!!!

It worked beautifully for LB's clicking....I did have to re-dose him 4 days later, though, as he started up again. Be prepared.

[snakegetters]

The standard chart dosage used for wild baby mammals for Baytril (Enrofloxacin) at 22.7 mg/ml is calculated at 10 mg/kg....a 125-gram squirrel, for example, should get 0.05ml BID....which is REALLY hard to get right, by the way everybody, unless you get a .5cc syringe.

Baytril precipitates when diluted, but if you dilute 1 to 10 just before you dose you can get a suspension of, say, 2.27 mg/ml that makes for a manageable amount. Suck up 0.1cc's of Baytril and 0.9cc's of LRS, then you can do the math and administer an amount that will be closer to .5cc. If that's too much fluid volume for the small critter, adjust the suspension accordingly until you are giving a fluid volume that you and the sqrl are both comfy with.

One of the big issues with giving small amounts of drug is that syringes and nipples have a certain amount of fluid retention, so you can end up leaving half your dose in the syringe. We solve this by preloading the syringe with water or LRS of a slightly greater amount than the feeding tube or nipple volume, then pulling the drug and keeping the syringe positioned so that the drug remains at the bottom and the neutral fluid on top for administration.

[snakegetters]

To address the actual subject of the original post:

The technical answer is that there is no answer. Enrofloxacin (Baytril) has a fairly broad spectrum of activity versus many strains of both gram negative and gram positive bacteria. In the specific case of a bacterial respiratory infection in a squirrel, enrofloxacin will be effective if the infection is caused by a strain of bacteria that is sensitive to that drug.

Enrofloxacin will not be effective if:

1. The sqrl has a bacterial infection but this strain of bacteria is resistant to enrofloxacin rather than sensitive to it. This is why a C&S (culture and sensitivity) test is very helpful to determine which antibiotic to use.

2. The sqrl's symptoms are not caused by a bacterial infection, but are instead caused by a virus, a fungal infection, an injury or some other cause that is not a bacterial infection.

In a reptile I'd add 3. The patient is not being maintained in the POTZ (preferred optimum temperature zone) for its species and consequently the pharmacokinetics of the drug are being drastically altered in the animal's body. I don't think this is the case with mammals, but there may be other factors involved with small mammals that I'm not up on.

So the answer to "does Baytril work for clicking" is that this question cannot be answered without knowing for sure why the squirrel is clicking. Baytril is indeed a pretty good guess especially if you are reasonably sure that the origin of the respiratory distress is a bacterial infection. And that in turn is a pretty good guess if you have a situation like formula aspiration as the known or suspected etiology of the illness. So is it a reasonably smart course of action to give Baytril to a clicking squirrel, sure.

It might be better to run more accurate diagnostics to pinpoint the appropriate treatment, but when you're talking about a patient that small who may not have time for lab results and who may be stressed considerably by diagnostic procedures, maybe it might not be. Prophylactic Baytril and no diagnostics probably isn't a bad idea under those circumstances.

If sqrl doesn't show improvement fairly rapidly on Baytril, start thinking that maybe it's not bacterial or maybe you have an enrofloxacin resistant strain of bacteria in your facility. Finish the course of Baytril anyway, because the specter of an enrofloxacin resistant strain of bacteria is a scary one. Even if that wasn't your original problem, you'd be inviting it that way.

[Critter_Queen]

Thanks for your input everyone. I really appreciate it! And Snake, boy, you just blew me away with all that technical stuff! LOL! Haven't had enough coffee yet.

Ahleeya died yesterday right after I got home from work. Was almost as bad as seeing the other little one die from seizures like my dad did...

At least her struggle is over.

Thanks for all your help...wish there would have been something more I could have done...

[Timber]

fatso, just noticed that you are veiwing this site but haven't posted. Also noticed that your Bio said that you have a sick squirrel. Talk to us.