Mama and Quirrley Baby needs your advice!!

[Jessyka]

How would I know if my baby girl has UTI or porphyria? Or I guess possibly the dark urine is caused from her diet? She has never had an acorn ever... she was brought up on Ebsilac so unfortunately we've been having to traet for mild MBD and are currently dosing with calcium. She eats 2-3 Henry's Picky Blocks, some romaine, sweet potato, carrots sugar snap peas apples and avocado mash with calcium and a pecan here and there. Could it be the sweet potato? She eats that more than carrots... I work at a vet office however it IS illegal to have a squirrel as pet or not being a licensed rehabber in Montana state so I can't technically bring her there... Also how would I go about getting her to drink more h2o? Sorry for the novel, thanks for any and all help in advance! Makes me feel more secure knowing there's someone with answers for me ��❤

[Mel1959]

Is your girl a NR? Does she have hind end paralysis? I ask because UTI’s are common with these guys because of the dragging.

The typical symptoms of a UTI are straining to urinate, urinating more frequently or in very small amounts and passing blood. Also not feeling as energetic or rubbing her female parts on her bedding.

Since you work at a vets office do you have access to antibiotics? If not, what you want to locate is Clavamox/Augmentin (human) or Baytril/Cipro (human) or SMZ-TMP.

Someone on here can dose it for you if you give a weight of the squirrel and the strength of the meds.

As for getting her to drink more, you can try warming the water slightly and adding just a tad bit of sugar. Will she tolerate using a syringe to give her water? Some folks have also given diluted cranberry juice to help with UTI’s.

[HRT4SQRLS]

I know that your vet won’t treat Quirrelly but is there any chance they would let you use a urine drip stick. It would test for a lot of parameters. You would know if this is blood or infection. You could rule these out. The leukocyte esterase on the strip is for white blood cells. WBCs are present with infection. The nitrite is for the presence of bacteria. I’m sure the vet techs use these and do the testing for the vet. It would give SO much information.

Here is a little test I want you to do. These reddish brown spots on the white paper.... when they dry do you see a powdery substance or does it dry and leave no residue? I know that is an odd request.

Since the Esbilac failure. I have been following a dog breeding site to see if anyone reports issues with Esbilac. While following I have learned a lot about small mammals aka puppies. I learned something that might be relevant. A person discussed a 7 week old puppy that died. It had been a problematic puppy from birth. On X-ray it was shown that the urethra was blocked with stones. On analysis the stones were determined to be made of urate. In the discussion several people reported that they too had encountered this problem. It was noted that in puppies it is often associated with a liver shunt which is a malformation of blood vessels in the liver. The blood shunts around the liver instead of through the liver. This led me to study urate crystals. I found an interesting phenomenon called ‘brick stain’ in baby diapers. Parents freak out when they find pink/red stained diapers. It is caused by urates in the urine. According to what I read it is completely normal and nothing to be concerned about. Urates exposed to air are pink/red and give the appearance of blood. When urates dry they leave a pink powder in the diaper.
https://thrive.kaiserpermanente.org/...aper-syndrome/

It’s possible that the calcium supplementing is causing a pH shift in the urine. Different crystals form in acidic vs alkaline urine. Maybe urates are being formed. I have no idea if this is the issue at hand but it was an interesting cause of pink urine.

By the way, yes, carrots and sweet potato can affect the color of the urine. Try eliminating these from the diet for a few days and see if the color changes.

How long have you been supplementing with calcium? I know that Quirrelly was an Esbilac baby but by now you should be backing down on the calcium.

This gives us a few things to consider. (1) Calcium supplementing affecting urine pH promoting urates.
(2) Beta carotenes from the sweet potato and carrots (3) a urine dip stick would give a LOT of information.