Post by tanzanyte on Jul 21, 2020 11:18:46 GMT -8
Hi,
I'm hoping there is someone with experience that can help me. I have 2 female gerbils - 1 pudgy thing called Bubbles and 1 skinny minnie called Vanilla. We've been checking their weights for a while now as we noticed that Vanilla seemed to have lost weight. She doesn't put weight on very easily so we have been feeding her treats in the play area away from her sister (we have a 2x3m area with lots of toys and cardboard boxes etc for them to run around, and they can go in and out of their home as they like).
I started noticing a lot of puddles of urine in the play area. Vanilla spends a great deal of her time out there, whereas Bubbles is a scaredy cat and doesn't often use the play area. We've had to take away the tube for 30mins a day to make sure she gets exercise to try and bring her weight down, but despite no treats and a complete food we aren't having a great deal of luck. Anyways that's an issue for another time, the point is we know it's not Bubbles' urine. I clean the areas that I know Vanilla uses as a toilet so I have a rough idea of how frequently she's going and if there are any dry patches from earlier in the day that I've missed.
We took her to the vet, who was quite happy with how healthy she seemed. We managed to sort a urine sample and the vet agreed that there did seem to be a lot of bacteria in the urine and prescribed an antibiotic. Vanilla has been on the antibiotic for over a week now but the urine frequency doesn't seem to have changed.
Vanilla doesn't seem to be drinking additional water (she's always tanked up on water right from when we first had her) and there is no blood in the urine. The vet didn't think it would be fair to put her through a blood test when she is behaving normally in every other aspect, especially as the vet wasn't aware of anything that can cure kidney disease. She said I could look for an exotic specialist to see if they could offer more suggestions, but I have no idea whether there is actually anything they could do.
Am I worrying unnecessarily given that she doesn't have more severe symptoms? or should I be thinking about taking her to someone with more specialist knowledge?
The vet mentioned changing her diet to a lower protein and calcium diet. Has anyone tried this?
I'm hoping there is someone with experience that can help me. I have 2 female gerbils - 1 pudgy thing called Bubbles and 1 skinny minnie called Vanilla. We've been checking their weights for a while now as we noticed that Vanilla seemed to have lost weight. She doesn't put weight on very easily so we have been feeding her treats in the play area away from her sister (we have a 2x3m area with lots of toys and cardboard boxes etc for them to run around, and they can go in and out of their home as they like).
I started noticing a lot of puddles of urine in the play area. Vanilla spends a great deal of her time out there, whereas Bubbles is a scaredy cat and doesn't often use the play area. We've had to take away the tube for 30mins a day to make sure she gets exercise to try and bring her weight down, but despite no treats and a complete food we aren't having a great deal of luck. Anyways that's an issue for another time, the point is we know it's not Bubbles' urine. I clean the areas that I know Vanilla uses as a toilet so I have a rough idea of how frequently she's going and if there are any dry patches from earlier in the day that I've missed.
We took her to the vet, who was quite happy with how healthy she seemed. We managed to sort a urine sample and the vet agreed that there did seem to be a lot of bacteria in the urine and prescribed an antibiotic. Vanilla has been on the antibiotic for over a week now but the urine frequency doesn't seem to have changed.
Vanilla doesn't seem to be drinking additional water (she's always tanked up on water right from when we first had her) and there is no blood in the urine. The vet didn't think it would be fair to put her through a blood test when she is behaving normally in every other aspect, especially as the vet wasn't aware of anything that can cure kidney disease. She said I could look for an exotic specialist to see if they could offer more suggestions, but I have no idea whether there is actually anything they could do.
Am I worrying unnecessarily given that she doesn't have more severe symptoms? or should I be thinking about taking her to someone with more specialist knowledge?
The vet mentioned changing her diet to a lower protein and calcium diet. Has anyone tried this?
