Respiratory Infection

[BoiseBallz]

Best to get a separate tub dedicated to nebulization treatment. Don't treat them in their enclosure. It needs to essentially be a closed system, so a screen top won't work.

[chosen2030]

Best to get a separate tub dedicated to nebulization treatment. Don't treat them in their enclosure. It needs to essentially be a closed system, so a screen top won't work.

sorry for the confusion - I meant what should the animal's normal enclosure be set up like between treatments, not the nebulization tub during the treatment. Any different from normal husbandry?

[BoiseBallz]

Bringing the ambient temp up and holding it at 85 degrees helps them fight infection, and it's always good to give their tub and everything in it a good sterilization, but otherwise, normal husbandry.

[chosen2030]

So my animal seems to have recovered from it's mild RI with the following treatment. Raised ambient temp to mid-90's with only small bowl of water in a terrarium. This is so the animal would be in a well ventilated enclosure and keep humidity low, but could still partially soak to self-regulate temp. Over 11 days I did the nebulization treatment using 1 liter of water to 3.75 ml of F10 SC.

Why 3.75? I had received advice stating that the ratio was from 3ml to 1 liter of water to 5ml to 1 liter of water, so when I pulled out my syringe and it only had 1.25, 2.5 and 3.75 markings on it, I decided to go with 3.75. By day 8 he sounded almost clear, but really seemed to be trying to soak in the water bowl. I continued the nebulizations and I thought I started to hear a very slight wheeze again and started to worry it hadn't worked.

I stopped after 11 days of nebulization and put him back into his tub with heat tape temp set at 87. Day 12, he had a great shed and a giant turd with urates. Day 14 he made quick work of a medium rat. I should also note that he is a hisser, so when he had the mild RI it was immediately noticeable. He is still hissing away but now there are no observable symptoms of RI.

He seems to be out of the woods and back to his old self, but we shall see if it lasts - fingers crossed!