The environment was one of the factors that maintain hamster’s health condition. Therefore, environment enrichment was important, this is already included toys for hamster, such as the ball, exercise wheel, chew toys, and many more. But, you need to choose safe toys for your beloved one: improper toys was one of the most common cause of fractures in hamsters. The cleanliness and dietary was the other factors you need to pay attention. For the example, the excessive dietary that caused immunosuppression expose animal to tyzzer’s disease.
Although there are disease that spread by other infected animals such bacterial blood-poisoning disease, it would always be better to done prevention before it strike your beloved pet hamsters. Furthermore, there are 3 types of infection on hamsters; does antibiotic suitable for handling them? So, yes, our article today would dig deeper about some of the hamster’s infections that could be treat by antibiotics.
Hamster’s Illness and Disease
Every living creatures included hamster could be ill and strike by diseases. Sometime your hamster got injures; as you know, hamster was one of actives and productive pet among other pets. So, sometimes they hurt themselves during the play time, it is common consider that this creature is so delicate. Therefore, you need to learn and know how to handle hamster’s health issues properly – but, yes, some of the problems require professional help to solve.
Now, we would learn about most common symptoms from ill hamster you should mastered: loss of appetite, huddling in corner, hair loss, diarrhea, inactivity or passive, sneezing and wheezing, unkempt coat, and wetness around the tail. First thing you should do if you’re noticed these symptoms are encouraged the hamster to eat and drink until you bring him into the vet.
However, there are some cases of serious illness require professional help such as infection. Infection could only be handle with drugs such as antibiotics and other clinical treatment, so if the hamster was got infections bring them immediately to the vet to get treatment as fast as he could. Without further do, here are 3 types of infection on hamsters; does antibiotic suitable for handling them?
1. Respiratory Illness
Respiratory illness would start from light symptoms such as sneezing but if you ignore it, it grows into serious problem such as pneumonia. If the diagnosed have been made which resulted that your hamster has respiratory illness, treatment should be started as soon as possible. The caused of respiratory problem was bacteria such as Streptococcus and Pasteurella; then the other culprit was virus such as flu virus.
First treatment that suggested by veterinarian would be antibiotic treatment. The antibiotic that prescript was depended on the bacteria that caused the problems – but, keep in mind, antibiotic unable to cure illness caused by viruses; plus, the antibiotic might not work if the problem already in advanced. All you need to do is fed the hamster properly as the guideline prescription from the vet.
Symptoms:
The symptoms of pneumonia in hamster included: fever, nose and eyes exhibited mucus discharge, loss of appetite that leads to losing weight, respiratory distress, depress or dull appearance, and constant sneezing and coughing.
Prevention:
As I always mentioned many times, prevention is always better than curing the problem. First thing you need to do is separate the pneumonia hamster from the healthy ones to disclose distribution of the infection. Put the sick one into a sterile place which far from noisy to provide time for hamster to rest and heal. Then the last step is keep the cage’s environment dry, and warm, plus free from soiled bedding.
2. Skin Abscesses
Skin abscesses happened caused by infected pocket of pus under hamster’s skin. This situation happened due the wounds infection from accidents that resulted on injuries such as by sharp objects and others. If you noticed skin abscesses occurred on your hamster, immediately bring her into the vet to close the infection distribution throughout hamster’s body.
Cause:
The cause of abscesses was open wounds or other trauma sites which got infected. The injuries that occurred in your hamster could be from fight (with another hamster), bite, or incision from sharp objects. Untreated wounds commonly leads to skin abscesses.
Symptoms:
Most of the cases skin abscesses occurred on hamster head although it could be appear in other different places. You would notice swelling beneath hamster’s hair, plus reddens appears around the area. When the infection severe, hamster’s lymph nodes and cheeks might looks swollen. Then when the abscesses was rupture, you would see soil and pus ooze out surround hamster’s hair.
Treatment:
First thing that the vet would do is assessed the skin abscesses to determine do surgical remove needed or only with applying of topical heat-producing ointments. Then, the vet would start to rupture the skin abscesses on hamster’s body. But, however, the best result of rupture seen from surgical method rather than flush, drain, or lanced. The antibiotic often prescript to remove all the bacteria of hamster’s infection.
3. Salmonella Infection
This infection occurred caused by salmonella bacteria. This infection was classified rare in hamster, but this infection leads to dangerous problems included: diarrhea, miscarriage, and septicemia. The bacteria spread throughout food or water that have been contaminated from wild rodents. The dangerous side of this infection is a rapid contagious to another animal and human.
Symptoms:
If the hamster was suspect with salmonella infection, the hamsters would exhibit these several symptoms, included: fever, diarrhea, loss of appetite, dehydration, distended stomach, abnormal vaginal discharge, lethargy, vomiting, weight loss, abdominal pain, rough body coat, and the last leads to miscarriage.
Diagnosing:
The diagnosing of salmonella infection was based on hamster’s physical symptoms. Furthermore, an absolute diagnose would appears after the vet collecting fecal samples to determine the bacteria that infected the hamster.
Treatment:
Unfortunately, treatment is not an effective method for salmonella case. The ordinary handling was involved broad-spectrum of antibiotics and therapy of electrolyte and fluids supplements.
Conclusion, monitor the hamster condition every day so you can notice if something went wrong with your beloved hamster before it’s get too late.