Hi there,
I wrote in about a month ago to ask for help on getting my two girls to
poop in the litter boxes after I moved to a new apartment.  I got some
great advice, and had things basically under control, until a mere few days
later, I adopted an 8 month old little boy.  He was not taken care of well
at all, by his former owners.  He was horribly overweight, due to never
being let out of his cage, he and the cage, and all his bedding were
filthy.  It took me over an hour to wash the cage.  Bandit, however, is a
wonderful, sweet natured boy, although I am still trying to teach him not
to bite so hard with those big teeth. :)
 
Anyway, three days after bringing him in, with them all having play time
together, but separate cages when I wasn't home, my girls starting having
the dreaded green slimy poop.  I immediately started them on pepto twice
a day, and Spot (who I was most worried about, since she had an ulcer two
years ago, and occasionally has stomach upset) recovered fairly quickly.
Within 10 days, she was pretty much back to normal, and had no dehydration
or weight loss.  Frito, on the other hand, is another story.  She had
diarrhea for about 2 and a half weeks, but was eating duck soup and
drinking pedialyte, kept her weight up and was not dehydrated.  Last
week, though, she suddenly dropped in weight, and refused duck soup and
pedialyte, and was making herself vomit when I gave her the pepto.  I even
tried giving her children's kaopectate instead, which Spot thinks is yummy,
and she threw this up too.  Her activity level dropped off and she started
to look a little out of it.  I realized I was over my head here, and was
off to the vet.  He gave her sub-q fluids with b vitamins, and prescribed
metronidazole twice a day along with the pepto.  She seemed to have a
remarkable recovery.  From about twelve hours later until last night, she
was producing well-formed, only slightly wet brown stool, instead of the
tan bird seed poop I had been seeing.  I took her back to the vet
yesterday, to get her weighed and get some more fluids, and she had put 2
tenths of a pound back on.  She was very active and playful, and seemed to
be her old self.  Last night however, the foul smelling bird seed poops
had returned.  She has now had three bowel movements in a row like that.  I
am really starting to worry about her.  My vet doesn't know what else to
do, and we have both read the ECE faq, and it doesn't seem to address the
problem of the symptoms lasting for so long, never mind disappearing and
then returning so rapidly.  Sorry this is so long, but I need some help
here.
 
Thanks in advance,
Gail, Spot, Frito (the sick one) and Bandit (the new guy who started all
of this)
 
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[Posted in FML issue 2901]