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Sick rat, sick snake
Feb. 24th, 2020 11:37 pmToday was stressful.
My pet rat Moose was in respiratory distress today, out of nowhere. I was working in the pet room and all of a sudden he was gasping with lots of porphyrin mucus (it looks like blood but isn't). I've never seen so much mucus at once, I honestly thought he was dying and had blood in his lungs. I was ready to put him down.
He's an old boy, just turned 2 on the 16th. He had an ear infection that I treated last summer so he's had a little head tilt since then but has otherwise acted normally until today.
I did some quick research online and brought him into the bathroom where I turned the shower on hot so it steamed up the room. After a few minutes he was still gasping but not as strained so it must have been helping. Soon the hot water was gone, and I did some more reading. He was still gasping but the mucus production had slowed down. I tried the last thing I could. I grabbed an empty toilet paper roll and put his head in one end, and sprayed my fiance's rescue inhaler in the other. I removed the roll and waited.
His breathing slowly got better! After about 15 minutes he was breathing normally and falling asleep snuggled against me. I couldn't believe it worked! For the first time I was thankful Jordan has asthma. I set Moose up in a quarantine area and just before bed I got him to lick up his first dose of antibiotics. He's not happy to be away from his buddies but if he keeps acting normally after a few days of antibiotics I will put him back with them.
Less scary but still stressful, my big boa Tiamat is also showing some signs of pneumonia. I've been trying to keep the humidity up in the whole snake room this winter with a humidifier, but some cages want to dry up if I'm not on top of them, and hers is one. Totally my fault, I think her humidity dropped a few too many times this winter and her system needs a little help.
I set up the reptile fogger with F10 and started treatment today. Hopefully over the next 10 days she'll recover and I won't need to bring her to a vet for antibiotics. She's my baby!
In other news, so far so good on making weekly YouTube content! I'm not sure if I'm going to make a video on these recent issues or not. If my channel were already established, yeah, but since I'm just getting going I think I want to focus on some lighter stuff.
Gotta keep moving forward...
My pet rat Moose was in respiratory distress today, out of nowhere. I was working in the pet room and all of a sudden he was gasping with lots of porphyrin mucus (it looks like blood but isn't). I've never seen so much mucus at once, I honestly thought he was dying and had blood in his lungs. I was ready to put him down.
He's an old boy, just turned 2 on the 16th. He had an ear infection that I treated last summer so he's had a little head tilt since then but has otherwise acted normally until today.
I did some quick research online and brought him into the bathroom where I turned the shower on hot so it steamed up the room. After a few minutes he was still gasping but not as strained so it must have been helping. Soon the hot water was gone, and I did some more reading. He was still gasping but the mucus production had slowed down. I tried the last thing I could. I grabbed an empty toilet paper roll and put his head in one end, and sprayed my fiance's rescue inhaler in the other. I removed the roll and waited.
His breathing slowly got better! After about 15 minutes he was breathing normally and falling asleep snuggled against me. I couldn't believe it worked! For the first time I was thankful Jordan has asthma. I set Moose up in a quarantine area and just before bed I got him to lick up his first dose of antibiotics. He's not happy to be away from his buddies but if he keeps acting normally after a few days of antibiotics I will put him back with them.
Less scary but still stressful, my big boa Tiamat is also showing some signs of pneumonia. I've been trying to keep the humidity up in the whole snake room this winter with a humidifier, but some cages want to dry up if I'm not on top of them, and hers is one. Totally my fault, I think her humidity dropped a few too many times this winter and her system needs a little help.
I set up the reptile fogger with F10 and started treatment today. Hopefully over the next 10 days she'll recover and I won't need to bring her to a vet for antibiotics. She's my baby!
In other news, so far so good on making weekly YouTube content! I'm not sure if I'm going to make a video on these recent issues or not. If my channel were already established, yeah, but since I'm just getting going I think I want to focus on some lighter stuff.
Gotta keep moving forward...
