My trick to getting medicine down Pumpkin!

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Melissa's ZOO

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Joined
Sep 4, 2007
Messages
2,199
Location
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
I got some erythromiycin(Zythromax) for Pumpkin and her awful breathing noise and let me tell you it tastes F-ing awful!!!!! I put 200 mg in with 4 ml of strawberry quick to give her .3 ml dose. I cannot get it down her and I don't blame her it is awful. Any ideas on how to get it down here? Even if I syringe it in her mouth she refuses to swallow it.
 
Mine used to hate it, too. I have been adding a drop of olive oil and some baby cereal to the Zithro/Nesquick combo. You can always add something sweet like Rice Dream.

If all else fails (and it has for me in the past), try a bit of thick chicken broth and/or honey.
[ETA: Did you use Strawberry quick instead of water when you mixed up the Zithro? I thought that you needed 14 ml of water. Maybe the mixture is too concentrated, which really would taste awful]
 
not sure if this will help or not but do you hold her when you try to give her the medicine by syringe? I have a female on baytril right now that hated taking medicine when you held her but if you let her sit in the cage she'll grab the syringe and drink from it.
 
Godmother said:
Mine used to hate it, too. I have been adding a drop of olive oil and some baby cereal to the Zithro/Nesquick combo. You can always add something sweet like Rice Dream.

If all else fails (and it has for me in the past), try a bit of thick chicken broth and/or honey.
[ETA: Did you use Strawberry quick instead of water when you mixed up the Zithro? I thought that you needed 14 ml of water. Maybe the mixture is too concentrated, which really would taste awful]
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will try the olive oil trick tonight and see if that helps. Maybe I will try the water and then mix it with the baby cereal and olive oil. If I add that much water to it what will my dose be .7 ml?

Shade, with all my girls I usually put the meds on a spoon and sit them on the table and let them eat it on their own but Pumpkin refuses to eat it. It is weird she refuses it because all my other rats will gobble her meds down in a heartbeat, even though I know it tastes AWFUL.
 
I would have someone critique this suggestion, but I just had my boys on baytril/doxy, and they hated it! I found one thing that they would just hoover it in, though. You should try some baby food. I picked up the grossest kind (vegetables, beef and spaghetti) and they lapped it up! Try that, and see if it would help.
 
I tired the baby food thing and it was a no go. I think she is on to me and just refuses. But this is my new trick. I syringe half the dose in her mouth and then hand her a Chickin-n-Biscuit cracker piece so instead of spitting it out she swallows it ASAP so she can grab her cracker. I let her eat it her cracker and then I repeat. So far it is working.

It is weird because in the strawberry quick everyone else tries to kill for it, not Pumpkin she knows what is up and refuses.

The Zitro is working, she is still a little noisy but it is not all the time just when she gets excited. So probably another week and a half of treatment and she will hopefully be good to go.
 
Emma was always really hard to medicate. Towards the end the only thing that worked was putting the medicine in baby cereal that was made up with ensure instead of water.
 

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