Forcing medicine?

[Miss M]

Squeak is 3 1/2 days into her treatment for probable rat poisoning. She is not showing any symptoms to this point, possibly because she's been woofing thistles like crazy!

I ordered some Vitamin K supplements which are emergency pills for dogs and cats who have eaten rat poison. After I ordered, I read a little more on the specifics, and they are beef flavored -- well, they are intended for dogs and cats, so that makes sense. :roll:

But I still have a rabbit who needs Vitamin K supplementation. I'm going to run out of thistles, and I don't know that they contain enough Vitamin K to counteract the rat poison, anyway. I can look for more thistles, but I don't know if thistles are enough to do the job. I'm looking at treating her for at least 3 months, possibly even 6!

I got 50mg tablets, hoping that by packing more mg into each tablet, the amount she'd have to eat each day would be very small. And indeed, the piece I need her to eat is about half the size of a pea (about 8mg). Getting her to eat it, though, is showing itself to be a problem. It is beef flavored, after all. Why couldn't it have been mango? I guess dogs and cats don't go out of their way to eat mango. :?

I broke up the little piece and stuffed it inside four fat raisins. She bit into the first one, and immediately rejected it.

I tried again. I cut off a slice of banana, and stuffed a fresh piece of Vitamin K into a slit I cut into it. She eagerly devoured the banana, carefully eating around the K and allowing the bit of banana containing it to fall through the floor. Maybe she managed to get a little of it anyway, but she certainly did her best not to.

How can I get this beef-flavored K into Squeak once a day?

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

Pulverize the bit you are giving her, dissolve in about 1 cc of water, suck it up into a syringe,( a small one,of course) place end of syringe in her cheek, FAR back in her mouth, hold her chin up a bit, then Slowly dispense the mixture-- If you have ILuvbunnies stroke her throat,-chin to chest only- hold her chin up, it will facilitate swallowing the mixture without spitting it out

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Terry has it exactly right regarding forcing her to take the meds.

I am thinking that maybe if you mixed it with fruit juice or maybe sweetened it with molasses she would find it more palatable and might take it willingly.

 

[akane]

Yep dissolve it and squirt it is the easiest. I would not use molasses. It can cause problems in large amounts. Something else sweet like plain fruit juice or I've dissolved stuff in gatorade might help cover the beef taste. You can also puree a banana. Pureed banana and blueberries are the 2 things most irresistible to my guinea pigs and rabbits.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

You can also puree a banana. Pureed banana and blueberries are the 2 things most irresistible to my guinea pigs and rabbits.

It's a bunny smoothie!

 

[Miss M]

Squeak is not as friendly as Pearl was, and I'd like to try to avoid making her less friendly, especially since she just started warming up a little. I'll do the syringe if I have to, but when the pureed banana/mashed vitamin idea was posted by Akane, I figured I'd give that a try first. I'll see in the morning whether it's worked. I wanted to get a good cover for the vitamin, so I used about an inch of banana. I could not smell the vitamin when I was finished mixing the two, so we'll see if she does. I gave her the bit of peel, too.

Thanks for the ideas! I'll try the others if the banana doesn't work.

It's a bunny smoothie!

:lol: Yeah, with the Vitamin K, it would be like one of those "healthy" smoothies with the vitamin powder and wheatgrass juice!

 

[akane]

I haven't found forced oral medicine makes antisocial behavior much worse. If you are interacting with them regularly they usually go back to normal within a week or 2 of the medicine ending no matter how much of a fight you had on your hands. Even with little other interaction my baby gerbils who had a respiratory illness and needed twice daily medicine have nearly forgiven me. They don't mind being handled but sometimes suddenly panic if you scoop them up similar to how I would hold them to keep their head still. They'll gladly come up for treats and run on you and they've been held all of 4 times outside of being medicated. The only time I've had anyone hold a grudge for awhile was with injected medicine. That rabbit I was doing penicillin injections on started to get a bit violent when I'd reach for her and started thumping as soon as she saw me. We had a pair of foals we did antibiotic injections on due to strangles one year and the one I kept 5 or 6 years later will still beat the crap out of the vet if he doesn't follow my instructions for using a needle on her. She can't be twitched or cornered and you can't tap her neck before putting the needle in.

 

[Miss M]

Thank you, Akane, that's good to know!

How do you get an unwanted syringe into the back of the mouth beside the cheek, dispense slowly, and not get bitten?

 

[arachyd]

I don't know if this will help, it's geared toward people, but you can search for "coumadin diet" which is basically for those on blood thinners who need to be concerned with getting enough vitamin K. I'd search for you but I'm having computer problems. This link lists foods high in K but some of them you'd have to be careful your rabbits can eat them (some of mine have had really bad reactions to the brassicas) and might have to start with very small amounts. http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/food/vi ... -foods.htm

 

[Miss M]

Yes, in fact, my mom is on coumadin, so she has to be careful in this manner.

The superwarfarin in the rat poison is so strong, and so long-lasting, that starting with small amounts would not give her enough K to counteract the poison. She would have to eat several cups per day of, say, kale or spinach, in order to make a low-end rescue dose of K. I'm not dismissing your information, I would just have to use them in addition to the supplement.

Squeak ate her entire Banana-K smoothie last night! :razz: Can I get her to do that every day, for months? We'll find out.

Thank you for the link, Akane, and I'll be looking into the price of kale and such. Of course, it's one of the brassicas... I didn't know that before now. I'll be doing some more research. <br /><br />__________ Wed Jan 04, 2012 11:35 pm __________<br /><br />Just an update... Squeak is still doing well. Giving her Banana-K smoothies, and Oatmeal-K with blackstrap... any way I can get her to take it willingly!

Running out of thistles, though. Going to have to start poking around the vacant lots.