Posted by Zythum on September 24, 2002 at 16:23:01:
My baby grey started to make loud sounds
while breathing a few days ago. I could even
feel a slight difficulty or obstruction in
the lungs. A clicking sound was also heard which
made me fear a pneumonia. It got me quite alarmed
because it was evolving rapidly from a faint sound
in the morning to a rather loud one around noon.
I checked on the net and found out 2 nice references
for treating rats (which I assumed is a good
animal model for squirrels or rodents in
general). www.rmca.org has a good review
of antibiotics and dosage and so does the
Layman's chart (search google).
I administered 10 microliters of a 40mg/cc solution
of Gentamicin sulfate mixed with milk to my baby to
fight the suspected primary infection toghether with
a dose of 0.2cc of a 10mg/cc solution of Ampicillin
to fight any secondary infection. My baby weighs about
100-110 grams.
The result was spectacular. After 4-5 hours, he was
again roaming in his cage with almost no sounds from his
chest. After 10-12 hours, he was completely cured.
A second dose was given 20 hours after to make sure
everything was ok.
That's it, I just wanted to share my experience. I didn't want
to go to a vet because I would have felt a bit silly to
spend that much money on a squirrel when so many ppl
are starving in this world. Well, that's only my
personal opinion so don't flame me for that.
Hope it can help somebody. By the way, the dosage is
proportional to weight so adjust it for your babies.
Good luck
