Important case to Solve!

[lmuse333]

I apologize... This post is probably going to be a bit lengthy, but I really do need to get to the bottom of this and figure out what to do so I can save my babies. I would really appreciate anyone and everyone who would take the time to read this and post a reply, even if you think the reply might not be helpful, it may at least stem an idea that could be.



So here goes....

Introductory:
First of all I have been breeding off and on for a while. I currently have a breeding pair in one tank and a single male in another. This single male I wish to breed because he is very beautiful and is a pied Siamese. We had a female in the tank with him whom he had bred with but she died during labor. And he has been in this solitary tank for probably 4-6 weeks now. I know that gerbils need a lot of social interaction and he's been very stressed and gaining a little bit of weight. So I was starting to worry.
Regardless of breeding him again I started trying to find him a cage mate for social purposes. My other tank has the two adults and a 15 day old litter and I do not wish to split the parents up for this purpose...
So I started searching the area's local pet stores. There are three pet stores that I have access to. Pet-smart, and two locally owned stores. I NEVER buy pets from pet-smart! And so far in "the past" I've had pretty good luck with the private owned stores, as they are sister stores... owned by the same person etc. My first generation breeders were collectively purchased from both of these stores more than a year ago.
However recently I've ran into trouble with them.
When I browsed the stores for a gerbil cage mate for Sparta, one store had a morbidly obese and unhealthy/unhappy adult gerbil in a solitary tank and the other store had two females that were about 6 weeks old. Skipping on the obese adult, I checked out the two females. On observation I found that one of these in the tank was sick, so we purchased the other one.
(I guess I kind of knew better, but when we discussed it my husband and I decided we would try to rescue the little girl before she got sick too. )
Initially she was very healthy looking despite that her cage mate had wet looking ungroomed hair, huddled in a corner very bowed up with eyes tightly squinted and breathing hard. For precautions, I quarantined the little girl in a spare Rubbermaid tank. Within two days she had diarrhea that was so bad there was a constant stream of yellow mushy goo coming from her backside and her eyes too were squinty and she looked much like her previous cage mate.
At this point I knew there would be no saving her, So I took her back to the pet store, hoping either they could do something for her, or at least be alerted of the problem.
Well they wanted me to do an exchange and get another gerbil... they only had the sick cage mate still in the store, though I was surprised to find it still alive. And as I was back there looking the OWNER brought the sick gerbil I'd returned and put it back into the same cage.
Of course I didn't exchange... I was irritated by the treatment they gave me... acting as if there were nothing wrong with the gerbil I was returning or its cage mate, nor the injustice of them still trying to SELL sick animals.

They gave me a voucher for a later exchange good for up to a year.


Well my husband has just recently gotten a snake a little over a month ago. And since the only place to get mice or rats is that pet store, we go in there at least once a week if not more.
Well two days later we were back in buying a rat. The sick gerbils were gone. Deceased I imagine.
Then we went back nearly a week later and got some crickets for Sparta, my lonely spotted Siamese male in my solitary tank, for him a little bit of entertainment and exercise.
They hadn't gotten any more gerbils in, which is relevant to prove that the gerbil I then purchased a day later was a VERY new arrival.
When we went back in the next day and got two more rats for the snake, they had new baby gerbils. They were SOOOO tiny. I was a little bit uneasy at first about the fact that they were so tiny. And all from the one litter they were passing them off as all female, so I figured something was up.... a littler of six being all female--- it hasn't happened to me yet those odds are pretty crazy that there weren't at least one male. They probably weren't mature enough yet to actually determine their gender.
But since they were so new and the one I wanted walked directly into my palm the instant I put my hand in I just had to rescue her from that place with my convenient "exchange voucher". She was beautiful... pied just like Sparta which would yield a 50% chance of pied babies and she had a wonderful vibrant coat. Very perky and alert. active.
Got her home and figured she was healthy enough... to just skip the quarantine process.
NOTE: BAD IDEA... never do that.... What was I thinking?
Anyway, I don't actually know if she was sick or not. I half believe she just wasn't weaned. Never once did I see her eat or drink.
Once in the tank she played a little bit then for the next two days sat secluded hiding in the nest. When I would take her out she would make a clicking noise.... that I'm not sure was RI because it was more of a suckling noise and was more random than accompanied with labored breathing.
However her fur was a bit puffed, she was lethargic and looking kind of drear in the face. Her being SO tiny I assumed that she just wasn't weaned yet and that this pet store had no idea wth they were doing. Literally she couldn't have been more than 4 weeks old. Which is time enough to be weaned-ish, but any litter I've bred in the past I prefer to keep them for at least 6 weeks. She was way tinier than any gerbil I've ever given to a new home.
Yet still, I'm not sure that it wasn't RI. So I, calculating my options of either doing nothing or at least trying something, decided that it wouldn't hurt things too much if I tried to foster her for a couple weeks with the 15 day old pups in the other tank.
The dad in that tank, Ninja, has fathered around 8 litters or more with different females (me experimenting with genetics, since he's my favorite... a Burmese ) And he has also been the first to pull fostered pups into the litter when I had other mums not able to produce milk, ultimately being, in my opinion, the only reason the foster mom accepted them.
So Ninja dad accepted this new little girl immediately. He LOVES babies So much I even sometimes rag on my husband to be more like Ninja, haha. And then I introduce his mate, the mom of the litter, and she immediately starts grooming and tucks the little one under her belly. A good sign.
So I figured she was good to go. I put her in the tank and she took right up with the younger pups in the liter, cuddling in with them and settling right to sleep. This whole introduction process took no more than half an hour. I stayed up the rest of the night observing making sure that there were no aftermath conflicts. Nothing... I even saw the little girl nursing with the rest of the pups.

Then tonight I checked on them. I took the pups out, counted, handled, and listened to them breathe... all well and healthy. (except one of them has a broken paw/defect, but it's been that way since birth, surprised its made it this long :S ).
But I couldn't find the little girl. I had to dig all the way to the bottom on the opposite corner of the tank and found her dead.
I inspected her... no blood on her. No blood in the tank. She wasn't attacked. She didn't seem to have anything wrong with her that was visible. And even with RI it takes a little while for that to be fatal, and the fact that she probably wasn't even weaned means she should have still been protected by the antibodies in her mothers milk, only she hadn't had any for a confirmed more than two days.

So... I'm confused.


Then as I sit here with my new found insomnia from staying up all of last night... I decided to inspect the rats that we bought for the snake.
Horrible idea, because I know better than to get attached to a creature that is inevitably going to die anyway. But they are just so darn cute and I can never pass up the opportunity to try and tame something. The only reason they are both still here is because my husband is procrastinating on feeding the snake, since I make him do it.
But regardless, they are both sneezing ALOT and keep gaping their mouths open like they are goldfish trying to breathe. Something very uncharacteristic of a healthy rat.
When we had purchased last weeks snake food the pet store had half of an entire aisle of rats all different sizes, when we bought these guys all they had were these two med rats, one X large pet rat, and a bunch of raunchy looking mice whose cages smelled horrible. But they were feeders and I therefore relinquished all responsibility for them , brought them home gave them food water and a cage and then left them alone for my husband to do the dirty work.
But now I'm really concerned, because I'm afraid that it is something in the pet store that is HIGHLY contagious.

Fact... they had sick gerbils. Fact.... at least one of these gerbils has died, presumably at least 3. Fact.... they emptied out more than 70 rats super quick in one week, and Fact.... the rats we bought ARE sick.

Question... What is the sickness... did the little girl I introduced to EVERY GERBIL I HAVE have it too... and are my gerbils all going to get it as well?

Obviously I don't want to take that chance.

So... solutions: I have some Tetracycline left over from treating RI in 4 week old pups a while back that had gotten RI.
However, they weren't completely weaned and someone on this forum told me that they were just getting better on their own, that tetracycline actually binds with milk and was NOT helping. I did more research and found that they were right. I found ample resources declaring that tetracycline, while being ideal for treating RI in gerbils does bind with milk and cause liver and kidney failure in pregnant gerbils as well.
I found a different site however...
www.ratfanclub.org/resp.html
...that lists antibiotics, uses and dosages... except its for rats.
Among these are the drugs called chloramphenicol, doxycycline, erythromycin, tetracyclines, trimethoprim sulfamethoxazole, and tylosin.
I also found on another forum that people have had good luck with sulfatrim (septa) and baytril.
However... none of these sources tells me what it will do specifically to pregnant gerbil or her pups. Not to mention that I don't currently have any gerbils showing symptoms and therefore can't really diagnose, nor can I take to the vet to diagnose.
In the case of the vet, as sparse as pet stores are around here vets are even more sparse. And the ones that are local enough for me to transit to do not see exotics, nor could I afford them if they did.
Which is yet another reason why it is crucial to me that I figure out what to do to try my best and prevent any of my guys from actually getting sick.

I just don't know what to do. I'm especially scared that I'm gonna end up with an epidemic on my hands and lose all of my gerbils.

And from now on I will NEVER skip the quarantine stage of buying a new gerbil... the worry alone is enough to teach me a lesson.

[ohmylokix]

I am just going to touch on this.

DO NOT let a vet give chloramphenicol to pregnant gerbils. It causes severe aplastic anemia. Baytril and doxy/tetracycline aren't good fr developing pups.

Should this be an episode of e. coli, my own vet gave Metronidazole as a preventative.

HOWEVER, you MUST abandon ALL breeding practices immediately. You must not breed this stock, ever. Not them, not their babies, never. E. Coli is odd that it can lie dormant until the bodies of gerbils until they get stressed-- birth, weaning, split tanks. A UK breeder who continued to breed after a confirmed E. coli diagnosis lost MASSIVE amounts of animals. (It doesn't help that you have RI/defects in your lines, those need to be stopped ASAP-- it's bad breeding.) I'd split all breeding pairs ASAP. Also, the reproductive abilities of infected gerbils is severely affected.

If you wish to breed again, please wait until the lives of these gerbils come to an end.

[Chivalry]

Wow, that's heartbreaking about the little girl. If she didn't eat or drink for two days before you introduced her to your breeding pair then it's most likely she was dehydrated and weak, so without any other symptoms evident, it may have simply been that which killed her.

In any case, if all the animals in that store seem very unwell and it's possible there could be some kind of contagion brought in, then I suggest that you suspend the breeding and don't bring in any other animals. Basically you are going to have to 'quarantine' your own animals and observe for ill health.

From the description of the first, very poorly girl I would say that in a worst-case scenario it could have been e-coli or salmonella causing the severe diarrhoea, which are both easily transmittable and very dangerous. I'm can't possibly say for certain, but I think in this kind of situation it's best to assume the worst and take very serious action just to be safe. I would suggest that you return the feeder rats and find a different store - even if it is pet-smart, the most important thing is that you and your gerbils are safe. Also remember that if it might be e-coli or salmonella, then these are transmittable to and from humans, so take care by washing your hands before and after handling as well as inbetween different gerbils to limit spreading germs. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

I'm sorry I don't know anything about medicating young ones or pregnant/nursing mothers, but I hope someone else will be able so shed some light on that.

I hope it turns out that all is well! *cross fingers*

EDIT: I remember that breeder too, loki.

[doug]

There are several possibilities on what could have happened, one is like you said unweaned gerbils. Since you have bred and know the standard size of gerbils for given ages you would be able to tell what is undersized. If this pet store sells a lot of feeder rats the possibility exist the rat breeder produces other rodents and may have just shipped out what was available regardless of the age figuring they would be food anyway.

It could also be something be transmitted at the store, or what I have seen before is contaminated food making many animals ill, actually close to what you have described. The result of contaminated food (mold) was many dead animals.

It is possible you will never know what it is or what caused it unless it did transfer to your other gerbils.

Is it possible the other gerbils could get sick? sure, but it depends on the health of your gerbils and their immune system. In your case your actions have given you a "canary for the coalmine" the pups. If you watch them and they wean without issue you are probably are safe since the weaning is the time gerbils are most vulnerable.

Tetracycline really doesn't do anything there are several more effective medications.

If all goes well you should be good to go. Ohmylokix is just overreacting on halting all breeding, wait and see how your gerbils do.

Doug

[ohmylokix]

I certainly do not like how that statement was put.

[Jill]

I don't think it's at all fair to say that Ohmylokix is overreacting. Some breeders are much more cautious than others because of their own experiences. She experienced the worst of luck as a result of inadvertently introducing a disease to her stock, and we all saw what happened to the breeder she mentioned. It is something to be taken seriously, and breeding should be put off for at least a bit, just because you obviously do not want to bring any lives into the world that will just end up dying. If after a few months, and after experiences that might be considered stressful, then perhaps breeding again can be considered. I would personally wait until this litter is fully weaned, and maybe pair Ninja with 2 sons around 5 weeks. We've all had our own experiences so let's not discount something that somebody else said just because it doesn't resonate with our own experiences completely. Ohmylokix had some useful information to share.

[doug]

I am just referring to her second part of her post, which is overreacting by telling a person to halt all breeding, not discounting due to experiences, just due to the lack of looking at all options/possibilities. Given there are 15 day old pups and the female is expecting it will be evident quite soon if the problem has been spread as this is going to be the stressful situation for the female, and the pups will have the weaker immune system that could allow for an issue to show as well.

Doug

[ohmylokix]

Referring to the issue in 2006-2007(I think), halting breeding was the only true way to eliminate the disease from the stock. Of course, the breeder in question did not listen and treated each case on a day-by-day, and lost loads of gerbils.

I was speaking using knowledge of the 'OP' E. Coli case years back, which I did follow.

Here is a thread on E. Coli/fertility/antibiotic treatment options.

gerbilsuk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=health&action=display&thread=5510

[doug]

The thing is it is unknown what the problem is she had and all options need to be looked at, the diarrhea could very well be due to the animals organs shutting down or not too many variable are unknown. She could know soon enough due to her situation then evaluate what needs to be done. If it is treatment all gerbils would need to be treated at the same time to prevent any illness from bouncing back and forth, this is true for any communicable illness.

Doug

[lmuse333]

Well so far No one is getting sick... All of my gerbils were healthy before the introduction of the second little girl. And I agree with Doug...
I believe I am going to wait to split the breeding pair until this litter is weaned. The girl that was introduced to them had no diarrhea, so I have my fingers crossed that she just wasn't old enough.
But either way, like he said, if the pups show symptoms then I will know. Because from my past experiences pups at weaning age are the most vulnerable. I see no flaw in that method.
I'm really too afraid to try and treat any of the gerbils right now, because no one has shown any symptoms and I don't want the treatment to effect the current litter nor the unborn one.
And if anybody gets sick THEN I PROMISE I will separate the breeders. But right now I half believe it would just be more stress on the mom to split them up.
As far as the pet store goes, they wont let me return the feeder rats... 1) there's no return on the feeders and 2) I am limited to only one exchange on animals and I used that with the first gerbil... they claim that after that I am responsible for any illness. But considering they knew the gerbil I brought back was sick and they put it back in thier tank anyway, I'm pretty sure they just don't care.

So for the rats, that I have actually taken a bond with, they are now being dosed with the tetra. And after a couple days treatment, they have actually ceased sneezing. I know there are views that it doesn't work, but it's what I had so I tried it. Also, the rats don't have diarrhea. They actually seem pretty healthy other than the RI. So I'm also keeping my fingers crossed there that it works.

But I do agree that if there is an issue that I will should stop breeding. I understand that what happened with the fore-mentioned case of E. coli was tragic... but I honestly doubt this is that extreme. The only rodent with the diarrhea was quarantined completely and was never introduced to any gerbil in my home. And at that she showed symptoms by the next day. It's been nearly 2 weeks since she was in our home and no one else has gotten diarrhea. My only concern was her being contagious in the pet store and then the disease being transmitted to the other little girl that I brought home before I got her. But it's a slim possibility since its more likely she was just not weaned yet and she didn't have diarrhea.

I really hope I'm not back on here in a week crying that I made the wrong choice... At the moment it's what I feel best, but everyone has made great points and I appreciate all the feedback. I will keep posting on how its going.

*One of the babies opened its eye today while I had it out handling it! It was in my hand and started scratching it's eye and it opened up a little bit and within a few minutes it had one eye completely open. I feel very special to have witnessed firsthand like that.

[lmuse333]

Alright, I just wanted everyone to know that all gerbils are doing fine. No one else got sick. The babies are now fully weaned, completely healthy. And a new litter arrived yesterday.
I was just overreacting.

Thanks for the help and input guys!

[Shooting Star]

I'm glad everything seems to have turned out all right.

In light of what has happened, though, I would suggest a few things:

1) Do everything you can to switch your husband's snake over to frozen/thawed food. It's safer all around, from a health and injury standpoint. You can also get frozen snake food shipped to you, and avoid going to the suspect store(s) and the temptation that involves.

2) If you must feed the snake live animals, do not bring them in the house. Set something up so that you can keep them in a garage or shed.

3) Stop getting animals from either of the sister stores. They clearly do not care about their animals, and they likely have disease(s) running around either the store(s) or the supplier(s). And if the supplier is giving them unweaned gerbils, that's not the kind of stock you want anyway.

4) Find a vet. If you're going to keep breeding, you need to have a vet, at least for emergencies. If you really can't find any vet practices that will work with gerbils, your local petsmart includes a Banfield hospital. DO NOT attempt to treat serious diseases or potential epidemics without consulting a vet.