Diarrhea in NR fox squirrel

[Potassy]

Hi folks! I’m back with a request for knowledge/assistance with a medical condition with our 10-month-old female, paraplegic, fox squirrel, Sassy.
For the last 4-5 days, she’s had very mucousy soft stools, with loss of appetite, lethargy, and some dehydration/weight loss. Stool has a somewhat fishy odor (bad shrimp?).
We have not made any major changes to diet—she is given 2.5 Henry’s blocks daily, offered Teklad all the time, and her salads consist of endive (her favorite), other greens that she mostly won’t touch (cabbage family, arugula, dandelion), and rotating addition of sugar snap peas, butternut squash, a small piece or two of fruit (cranberry, persimmon, avocado). She gets rose hips, hawthorn berries, maple seeds, fresh maple branches, fresh apple branches, filbert branches with catkins, conifer cones. She gets maybe 2 nuts a week—one black walnut in shell for her teeth and a few small pieces of pecan/walnut/hazelnut.
Two major factors to consider: we administered 7days of Clavamox at 20mg/kg, twice daily for suspected UTI two weeks ago. First dose was 12/14, last dose 12/20. She had some soft stools midweek but they cleared after a day or two. We started dusting her Henry’s in probiotics and feeding her an hr before ABs. We have been continuing the probiotics since then.
Sassy has regular access to the outdoors. We take her outside twice daily for an hr or two to dig/forage/chew in the forest we live in, where we found her. So she is getting her face and feet in dirt/mud, on downed tree limbs, and in places where other animals, wild and domestic, have been.
Based on timing/persistence of this diarrhea, could it be due to a parasite? We are not in a state where we can get veterinary help, take stool in for testing.
Thanks for any help!!

[CritterMom]

The poops don't look THAT bad. I tend to think she is dealing with the tail end of issues from the Amox/clav.

Sometimes the soft poops will hang on after the issues that caused them have been gone for a while. Especially when I see the mucous, I always think that the diarrhea itself has caused irritation in the digestive tract because it is pretty caustic and if it has been going on for a while, things can get pretty raw in there. They can actually take either Kaopectate or Pepto. Neither one will cure diarrhea caused by something like disease or parasites, but it dries up the poop so it is more formed up and passes slower through the intestines, giving things a chance to calm down and heal the irritation. Sometimes that is all they need. If you can get us a weight on your squirrel and which you want to use (Pepto tastes like peppermint which rodents HATE so the kaopectate might be easier to get in) I will figure out some dosing for you.

[Potassy]

The poops don't look THAT bad. I tend to think she is dealing with the tail end of issues from the Amox/clav.

Sometimes the soft poops will hang on after the issues that caused them have been gone for a while. Especially when I see the mucous, I always think that the diarrhea itself has caused irritation in the digestive tract because it is pretty caustic and if it has been going on for a while, things can get pretty raw in there. They can actually take either Kaopectate or Pepto. Neither one will cure diarrhea caused by something like disease or parasites, but it dries up the poop so it is more formed up and passes slower through the intestines, giving things a chance to calm down and heal the irritation. Sometimes that is all they need. If you can get us a weight on your squirrel and which you want to use (Pepto tastes like peppermint which rodents HATE so the kaopectate might be easier to get in) I will figure out some dosing for you.

Thank you so much for the reply, CritterMom! Sassy is asleep but we’ll get a weight tomorrow and go out to get kaopectate. Do you have a suggestion on tablet vs liquid?

[CritterMom]

Thank you so much for the reply, CritterMom! Sassy is asleep but we’ll get a weight tomorrow and go out to get kaopectate. Do you have a suggestion on tablet vs liquid?

Liquid, absolutely! And you will need a syringe, preferably 1ml (no needle!) to measure and administer it.

Both of these meds work in the same way. They both contain kaolin, which is clay! It absorbs the excess liquid and slows down the advance through the intestines. It also turns the poop black - and when I say black it is anywhere between super dark brown to tar black. This is perfectly fine and should be expected but I like to warn people because it will scare you to death if you don't know it is going to happen!

[Potassy]

Ok, Sassy’s weight today is 560g.

[CritterMom]

Dosing sent by PM. She is a teeny foxer!

What happened to her? Her hind legs appear to be affected. What a face!

[Potassy]

Dosing sent by PM. She is a teeny foxer!

What happened to her? Her hind legs appear to be affected. What a face!

She was at 620g just a couple weeks ago when we gave her antibiotics, so we’re very concerned about the weight loss/dehydration in the last week.

We found her at about 12 weeks clinging to a tree with no movement/response below her waist. Managed to catch her and, thanks to a lot of help from folks around the country, we’ve gotten a decent routine in place for her. Biggest learning curve was managing her bladder. She needs expressing multiple times a day and with her much reduced waking hours in winter, we’ve been struggling a little to make appropriate adjustments. After this most recent UTI we determined we’d need to wake her a couple times to express her, which is undoubtedly stressing her out (and not helping her digestive track).
Apart from the occasional involuntary twitch, her legs and tail have regained no feeling or movement. This would be a post for a separate thread, but we did hear from a couple folks that gabapentin treatment might have helped (might still help?) with spinal trauma and rehabilitation.
She is, on the whole, a very happy, good-natured animal and we feel fortunate that we have had the resources to give her a stimulating environment even though she can’t be wild.

[CritterMom]

Feel free to use that syringe to start getting some fluids into her. You can add stuff to it to make her want to drink more, too - a splash of juice from her favorite fruit, a little sugar, honey, etc., to make it more palatable. If she will eat it, some watermelon is a great idea.

[Potassy]

Feel free to use that syringe to start getting some fluids into her. You can add stuff to it to make her want to drink more, too - a splash of juice from her favorite fruit, a little sugar, honey, etc., to make it more palatable. If she will eat it, some watermelon is a great idea.

Yes, thank you! Just did 5mls of super diluted apple juice after the kao and then she gobbled down a Henry’s. Will keep up with the fluids.

[Potassy]

Giving another dose of kao. Sassy had no bowel movements until this evening once she was in bed and there is now trace amounts of blood in the mucus. Ugh. Apologies for graphic poop pics

[Potassy]

Got Sassy up this morning and there were only two fecal pellets in her bed with more mucus and traces of blood. The color didn’t seem like it had changed/darkened. So hardly any stool passed in last 24hrs even though she ate pretty normally (multiple blocks, endive, butternut squash, apple branches). Not going to administer any more kao, but will work harder on administering fluids. I’m worried now about an intestinal blockage and why there’s so much mucus.

[Potassy]

Got Sassy up this morning and there were only two fecal pellets in her bed with more mucus and traces of blood. The color didn’t seem like it had changed/darkened. So hardly any stool passed in last 24hrs even though she ate pretty normally (multiple blocks, endive, butternut squash, apple branches). Not going to administer any more kao, but will work harder on administering fluids. I’m worried now about an intestinal blockage and why there’s so much mucus.

Giving some Bene-Bac on a little piece of nut. Was reading more about C. diff overgrowth in the gut post-ABs. Hoping we can get thing under control with just more help for gut biome

[CritterMom]

Got Sassy up this morning and there were only two fecal pellets in her bed with more mucus and traces of blood. The color didn’t seem like it had changed/darkened. So hardly any stool passed in last 24hrs even though she ate pretty normally (multiple blocks, endive, butternut squash, apple branches). Not going to administer any more kao, but will work harder on administering fluids. I’m worried now about an intestinal blockage and why there’s so much mucus.

Give her fluids and keep an eye on her. If she was having diarrhea like poos - the pile you photographed was big - she may be completely empty. Mucous is usually a response to inflammation - exactly what happens with diarrhea. It forms a protective layer that helps to ease things along. I don't think this is an obstruction - having gotten to experience that personally. Is she still eating?

[Potassy]

Give her fluids and keep an eye on her. If she was having diarrhea like poos - the pile you photographed was big - she may be completely empty. Mucous is usually a response to inflammation - exactly what happens with diarrhea. It forms a protective layer that helps to ease things along. I don't think this is an obstruction - having gotten to experience that personally. Is she still eating?

Oh thanks for assurance about this not being obstructive.
She is eating almost normally and has had pretty good energy (we set up a new cat tree for her yesterday, which she has explored, and I just caught her wrestling with her stuffed dragon and chewing on an apple branch). Got 6mls of apple water into her earlier.
Fingers crossed she is on the upswing. Will keep updating.

[Potassy]

In sort of a holding pattern now. Poops are well-formed and darker but still coming out with a lot of mucus. Also bowel movements not as frequent or in as much volume as normal, but her appetite has been up and down, mostly down. She only ate about 1.5 Henry’s yesterday along with a small salad and grazing on wild foods. No Teklad. Did not want her Henry’s this morning for breakfast but is making hungry grunts thinking we might be offering something else (she got Bene-Bac on a small piece of walnut just a bit ago). Keeping in mind she had a stressful, fitful night with all the fireworks going off to celebrate NYE.

[Potassy]

Hopeful that we’re almost out of the woods. While last night’s poops were still quite my mucousy (but well formed), today’s bowel movements have been basically normal. Also she’s had a normal appetite today and much more energy/curiosity.
We were able to enjoy a nice outing in the forest.

[supersquirrelgirl]

Very beautiful foxer! (my favorites) I find them bigger and love human attention.

[CritterMom]

Oh, I am so glad to hear this! She has such a sweet little face.

[Potassy]

Hi again. Unfortunately, improvements were short lived. Sassy went back to not eating or drinking the last couple of days, with her feeling so ill she would wake herself up multiple times in the night to go huddle in a corner of her cage. We forced some fluids into her and got her to eat some watermelon (not much), endive, and a few nut pieces. She won’t touch her blocks and has limited appetite even for high-value treats.
Bowel movements are heading in the direction of diarrhea again (smelly, light-colored, poorly formed, voluminous, with bloody mucous). Poor thing. We are still giving her benebac every other day.
Should I give her another dose of kaopectate to help soothe her guts?
Also, if these symptoms persist is there yet another AB we should give her for overgrowth of bad gut bacteria? We obviously don’t want to overcorrect but are worried about allowing dehydration and, especially, weight loss to persist and get to a critical point.

[CritterMom]

I would. It made her feel better the last time. You might give a bit more - I gave you a really small dose of it.

Do you have a way to get your hands on antibiotics? There is a drug called Metronidazole that covers a bunch of things stomach related including some parasites. It has become sort of a "try it if nothing else works" med. It is available from some of the fish med sites: https://www.calvetsupply.com/fish-zo...onidazole.html and I am sure there or many other sites - but you have to buy a whole bottle so $$$.

Does the poop smell really awful or fairly normal?