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!