From:
strawberry@strawberrymagic.com
Date: 2003-03-26 17:26:16 UTC
Subject: re: how much soft food?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <25426865.1048699576297.JavaMail.root@scandium>
I've been reading about Zan as I was flipping through here looking for help for my little guy, Garrett.
He seems to have gastric ulcers too. If Zan is looking a teeny bit better, give him a little more time before making your decision. I was ready to give up on Garrett on Monday, but now he is doing much better. The big thing was getting enough fluid into him, not so much the food. Our vet gave him some subcutaneous fluid, and that was enough to give him a bit more energy. Then we just kept forcing pedialyte with a bit of chicken baby food in it into him, because I just couldn't seem to grasp how to feed him the chicken baby food straight. If I could get his mouth open, I couldn't get my finger in to put it on the top of his mouth and out again before he tried to clamp his mouth shut again, catching my finger in the process. It was so much work getting enough fluids into him ourselves, even with two of us taking shifts. The subcutaneous injections bought him some extra time to help us work out how to do it.
Today, he is lapping a mixture of baby food and pedialyte from the syringe voluntarily, and looking almost normal except for being so skinny. He's on an antibiotic and Sucralfate, and his stools are not just digested blood anymore but starting to look more normal. I understand it will probably be weeks before he's back to normal, but that's ok. Best of luck to you and your Zan.