Giardia - Care

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
C

chinsmom

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 19, 2009
Messages
160
Location
Theodore, Alabama
My little guy has been diagnosed with Giardia. My vet has given me one round of a parasite medication, there were 5 applications given. It seemed like he was getting better - his droppings returned to the proper consistency. Things were looking really good for about three days, then his droppings started becoming soft again. He is due for another round again starting on the 10th, which we will do. What I need advice on is this: I think he got the infection from our water - being the novice that I am, we were giving him tap water, but we are on a well and I understand that well water is the worst thing you can give a chin. I am now giving him bottled spring water, changing it every day. I wash his bottle and food dish every day, and I scrub his cage and saucer every day with bleach water. Is there anything else I can do? Any suggestions would be greatfully appreciated. He eats and drinks well, and he plays like there is nothing wrong, but he has to be transferred to a carrier while I'm cleaning - he hates that with a passion! I'm sure this daily aggrivation has to be stressing him.
 
You are doing a good job, just make sure to rince well after bleaching.:)

Hope everything get back to normal after the feb. 10th treatment.

Keep us posted.
 
You need to use purified water not spring.
I went thought this with one of my boys and it took quite a few rounds of meds to get him cleared up.
Keep up the cleaning.It will keep him from reinfecting himself.
 
I don't trust most bottled water since some of it could just be tap water- yes, some companies just bottle tap water.

I use a PUR 2 stage filter for my chins. The 1 stage does not filter out microbial cysts (parasites), but the 2 stage does. You can either buy a pitcher or an attachment for your facet. They are fairly inexpensive and work great.
 
I have never dealt with giardia but from what I have read you need to clean everything, fleece, ledges, anything in the cage very well throughout the treatment. It does usually take a couple/few rounds of meds to clear it up and it sounds like you are being vigilant but if there are things in his cage that have not been disinfected I would do so :)). Good luck!
 
Also, it would be a good idea to move him to a temporary cage. This way you can sanitize his original cage, and he will not reinfect everything in there as the treatment is going on.
 
Great ideas, all of them, especially the one about a temp. cage and the 2-stage filtered pitcher. I do disinfect everything, if it doesn't run quickly enough, it gets bleached !;-] I appreciate all of the responses, it's made me feel a lot better about this whole thing. I was beginning to think I was a horrible mom - it's been so depressing! I'll go ahead and get his other cage out and "prepare" it - oooohhh, he's not gonna like that, it's a good bit smaller than his current home which is 4ft.X4ft.X3ft. but if it helps get him through this quicker, I can take only being able to talk to his butt for a little while (he's become quite adept at making his displeasure known). Thanks for all of your responses, you're all special folks. I'll let you know how it goes.
 
The one other hard part is that it's fecal-oral transmission. With dogs, they did a study where the animals were bathed thoroughly at the beginning of treatment, then bathed again on the last day and transferred to brand new kennels; that eliminated enough of the fecal contamination *on the dogs' coats* that most of the dogs did not reinfect themselves.

Bathing a chin is not generally recommended. Plus since they eat their own poo (sometimes straight from the chute), removing that is difficult. Watch the poop contamination of the dust bath. Basically the best you can do is disinfect as much as you can, as frequently as you can - which it looks like you're doing a good job with. Good luck!
 
Giardia-Care

Well, here we go, I go to pick up the second round of Chinzilla's meds today after work. Right now, things are looking better, his stool has tightened up, but it is still a tad bit sticky. I feel like I am now the proud owner of stock in Clorox, but if he gets completely over this, it is well worth it. Thanks again for your replies, and please give him a thumbs up every once in a while. I know the current situation is not catastrophic and I don't want to seem like a total weiner, but when one of my babies is sick, it still hurts - but then I figured that y'all would understand. Thanks again!!!!:thumbsup:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top