"a gangi" started it, Deb R continued and commented on it and Gary M. added a comment about the ornacycline and darkness.. Started about 6/24/2000 [If the credits are wrong let me know, thanks. Someone wrote in and a few levels of replies were compiled here.] [Return to Celtic Clique website]

What should I put in a gerbil first aid kit and what is each item for and should I change the items in it every month and put newer things in (medicines)

I would suggest:
1. a small packet of powdered esbilac milk replacer for puppies. Purchase replacement according to the expiration date stamped on the package. This is important to have on hand in case you have abandoned babies that need to be hand reared, as well as to feed to sick animals to give them liquids with concentrated nutrients at the same time.

I use KMR kitten milk replacer. I can get it in small poptop powder containers and premeasured powder packets. [KMR is nutritionally closer to gerbil milk than puppy milk replacer]

2. Needle-less Syringes. You can buy these via vet catalogues such as KVvet or through your local vet. They are marked by cc's so you can measure how much an animal is intaking of fluids, liquid foods or medicine. The tips are small so fit easily into their mouths. The syringes are disposable and cheap (like 10 to 25 cents depending on design) so buy several so that you use a new one each time (and reduce risk of reinfection).

If in a pinch, talk to a pharmacist. I have gotten a few from a local Walgreen's after vet hours when I was out. Sterns and Fosters' pet supplies also has syringes in their catalogs.

3. Eyedropper, glass. Not as good as the needleless syringes, but being glass you can disinfect it and reuse it easily in case you run out of syringes. Also use for applying saline drops to a rodent's eyes (rare occurance, but a tumour or abscess behind the eye can occur sometimes (dealt with it here) which pushes the eye out and makes it impossible for them to blink and lubricate it).

If this is the case (eye lube) get some Celluvisc or Refresh eye drops. They can be had in small packages, with small disposable plastic ampules in the box that hold a few drops. Celluvisc is a thicker fluid, and things tend to gum up more in the eye, but if they are really having a dry-eye problem, go for those. Walmart carries eyedroppers in a 2 pack (1 straight and one bent tip) in the infant ear stuff...and if in a pinch, Hobby Lobby sells packs of them in the student science homeschool supply area.

4. Neomycin (generic, if buying from a catalogue) or "Dry Tail" medication sold in petshops. For diahrrea caused by stress, particularily in animals recently moved to new homes. We use it more with hamsters than gerbils, but still good to have on hand just in case. Replace according to stamp on label.

Most stores around here have a run on it from about March through May, so make sure to have stock on hand before this time frame... this is the time of year when a lot of the southern suppliers that ship to most wholesalers who provide most retailers with their small rodent stock have sickness problems. So everybody needs the stuff about then. I've personally not had much luck using Neomycin for treating gerbils.

5. Tetracycline (generic if bought via catalogue) or if from a petshop, Tetracycline caplets sold for fish (the bird ones, ornacycline,) cost more for a less concentrated drug. The fish ones are easier to do math for figuring doses, has more meds per caplet for a cheeper price, and thus can treat more gerbils at a time. Replace according to stamp on label. STORE IN DARKNESS, light will break it down making it ineffective). Good for common communicable illnesses in gerbils. Apply a note to the bottle reminding yourself NO DAIRY PRODUCTS OR ITEMS CONTAINING CALCIUM TO BE GIVEN WITH THIS DRUG (calcium will bind to it and deactivate it). Read all labels especially pet multi-vitamins which contain calcium, remove any mineral wheels, etc.

This is important. It breaks down fast with exposure to light!

On this site under 'gerbil rodeo' I give how to with pictures to treat gerbils with ornacycline. It is readily available in most any pet store, and Mardel Labs packages the tablets in foil sealed, so they keep. Watch your expiration date though. IF YOU ARE ALLERGIC TO TETRACYCLINE handling the tablets, powder, or solution may make you VERY ill (personal discovery here...!) The trade name is Ornacycline.

6. A paper or cardboard "roll" to fit over waterbottles if you put tetracycline in their water (to keep out light which can destroy the medicine).

This is very important. It breaks down fast with exposure to light! However most gerbils delight in shredding a cover like that. A waterbottle blacked out with a permanent marker will work too.

7. Acidopholis Pills (bought in a health store or most drug store). This is excellent to give along with tetracycline, which sometimes may kill off natural, good flora in the gut. When this flora is killed off, the animal may suffer diahrrea or gas. Acidopholis helps the animal maintain a healthy level of good gut flora. Replenish supply according to date on label.

MAKE SURE to feed one hour before or one hour after the meds are given (the eyedropper dose) or the two will cancel out. IF you are in a pinch, any yogurt with 'active culture' will work, feed the animal a few drops of that. Yogurt drop treats will NOT work.

8. Clean Rags and towels. For cleaning up with disinfectants, wrapping around animals while treating them, using to line a nesting box for babies you are hand rearing etc.

A pack of white bar rags can be gotten reasonably, and they can be bleached. Use along with paper towels. Also keep a roll of unscented undyed toilet tissue around. The TP makes excellent nesting material to offer. NEVER EVER offer any fabric or cotton to your animals for bedding material or neststuff! It's lethally dangerous! Also for controlling animals you might use an old tube sock with a hole in the toe. You open up the end and the gerbil will usually scoot right in being curious, and pick them up before they can shinney back or crawl forward and force their way out through the end hole.

9. A Small "Kritter Keeper" or a small 2 or 5 gallon tank with secure lid. This is a "hospital room". Use it to keep a litter you are hand rearing in, or to seperate out and give special care to a ill or injured adult- especially if they are NOT supposed to be running around or otherwise being active while their injury heals.

Size Medium or Small on the Kritter Keeper. You can't wire a waterbottle into one though. I was told that little round gusset hole in the lid is for an air line, not a water bottle wire.... If you can't put a 5 oz Lixit (round ended non climbable bottle) into a kritter keeper, it is too small to keep an animal in for extended periods. However, ones that size make great short term hospital cages. Else I recommend a 2.5 gallon glass tank. Those are expensive and hard to find though. They're sometimes sold as betta fish tanks. A 10 gallon tank, retrofitted to take a split cage divider if needed, often works very well for a sick tank.

10. if you can afford this, its super- look in the reptile section for an "adhesive heating pad". Its a small pad that sticks to the side of the tank (the one discussed in point 9). Its much safer than using a heating pad or blanket (much much less risk of fire so you can leave it on if you aren't in the room) and provides direct heat to the side of the wall, not the floor, so an animal can choose to be near the warmest part or move to the cooler side of the cage for their comfort. The best models permit you to set an ideal temperature that it will not go over. if you can't afford this, have a heating pad and a towel. To use it, put the towel on the table top, then the heating pad, then fold the towel over the heating pad and set the tank on it. Cautions: never leave the heating pad on if you will be out of the room for a while or leave the house, as this is a fire hazard. Also you need to keep an eye on the pet inside and monitor the temperature of the bottom of the cage (the actual floor surface, not just the inside of the tank) to be sure they don't burn their feet!

Those reptile heaters stick like the dickens, and don't like water a lot. So take care if you apply one, and make sure you don't get it wet or the cord wet (don't soak the tank) when you clean it. I don't suggest the heating pad above, instead rig a 'warm corner' (see a description of how to do so elsewhere on this website).

11. A "sticker" thermometer to apply to the cage in #9 so you can monitor the temp inside the cage so it doesn't drop too cool or get too hot.

Try not to have the cage or tank go over 85F (about 30C) or it will be too warm for the animals. Stick it to a side outside, across from the corner you are warming up.

12. Anti-Stress herbal formula for pets (many brands) or just some "tension tamer tea" or other tea containing rosehips, chamomile, etc.. This is in case an animal is in a situation where they are caused to severely panic, especially if their panicking is causing them to do self-harming behaviors (biting themselves, running repeatedly into a wall etc.), interfering with your treating them or with their staying still if they are suppored to be kept still to heal etc.. Administer either in their waterbottle or with the syringe/eyedropper.

You can also confine them some with a split cage divider, cover over or block off part of the cage with cardboard on the outside or a towel over the top (BE 100% sure the gerbil can't get at the towel to chew fibers and threads off it). Making things 'dark and more secure' for them will often calm them down. I've never fed an animal any herb because the dosage for such a small animal can be difficult to figure and administer. It's lots easier to err for a 2 oz gerbil (56 g) than for a 150 pound (69kg) human in how much herb one can stand.

13. sterile gauze (find in 1st aid section of a pharmacy). Use to cover a wound while you apply pressure to stop it bleeding.

If in a pinch, grab a bandaid and trim off the sticky flaps and use that pad over the wound while you apply pressure.

14. This is useful to have in case another animal is injured or in case you have a very very "calm" gerbil who won't care if it has something on it. Most gerbils will try chewing applications off so it becomes a moot point and we usually skip trying to put a permanent application on. But, there is if you want to get it in case, self-sticking bandage wrap in petshops in the health section for cats/dogs. its usually brightly coloured and comes in a roll. You just apply the gauze (#13) and then wrap this bandage over it. Not the whole roll of course, you cut just as much as you need.

Not many gerbils will stand for it...or their tankmate will obligingly clean it off them, remove stitches, etc. Which can often make the injury much worse.

You can't put an elizabethan collar on a gerbil. They will fight to get it off, choke themselves to death, or their buddy will chew it off for them. Any vet that suggests it is insane. Honest.

15. Sharp, sterile scissors. To cut bandages, or flaps of dead skin that won't come off etc. (though you SHOULD SEE A VET for such serious injuries, but just in case of an emergency, sometimes you need to).

Get a good pair of stainless scissors and you can sterilize them with 99% rubbing alcohol or the flame method if needed. [NOT BOTH TOGETHER as this is a serious fire hazard]

16. Parvosol or other hand disinfectant. You can find it sold for cats/dogs in larger petshops or via catalogues or ask your vet for some. Use this on your hands when you need to handle contagious ill animals and later need to handle healthy animals since some illnesses can be transfered by your hands. Call me weird too, but i have a strangely high tolerance for this for some reason, so if I am out of something like parvosol, I actually wipe my hands with a towel that has bleach on it. I really don't recommend others do it though :) Though you should have bleach around anyway to dilute with water and use for disinfecting cages.

Bleach is the best sterilizer you can get. Bleach out of the bottle is 5% solution and nothing to mess with straight. Dilute 1 tablespoon bleach into 1 gallon of water for a bleach rinse. Or a 1:128 dilution. Not many can handle it. If you're in real direness purell makes an acceptable general hand sanitizer.Use clean paper towels to wipe hands off afterwards and discard towel.

17. Ivermectin: this isnt that necessary. Iuse it for treating most cases of worms, mites, lice and fleas in animals. I' ve used it on rodents including gerbils. You should verify how to dose this with a vet before using it on your own. After which, you can buy it through vet catalogues without prescription. Note, it is toxic to fish and should not be used near fish tanks or items used in them, and should be disposed (including the "empty" containers which have a residue on them)of in in biohazard receptacles. I keep the stuff on hand so i can treat my animals at the first signs of any parasite as well as preventively before and after shows and "flea season". If you just have a few pet gerbils and don't regularily breed or have other pets that go out doors or bring in new animals (rescues etc.) periodically, you probably will never need this anyway.

I believe that this should only be gotten from and adminstered by or under the direct supervision of a veternarian, and so should not be in the average keeper's first aid box for their gerbils. I've also heard some side effects reported where I'd hesitate to use this even under a veternarian's direction.

There is a flea and mite spray that works well too, sold under varying brand names and at varying strengths. You need to purchase the stuff with a total of 0.06 percent active ingredients. Some stuff goes as low as half that, most notably 'bird mite spray'. However that will work in a pinch, but you really need to soak things with it, and Walmart often carries it at the weird hour of the night you usually need stuff.

18. Small container of gatorade (drinks sold in food stores) or pedialyte (sold for human babies in grocery stores). Replace according to expiration stamped on bottle. This is useful if you have a sick animal that is dehydrated, such as due to "wettail" or heatstroke. Get them to drink as much as possible as often as possible until they perk up and start eating on their own, then continue giving them a little through out the day to keep them from relapsing. If you run out of this, use a cup (8oz) of water with a "pinch of salt" and a "touch" of cornsyrup. But pedialtye or gatorade is better as it has electrolytes too.

Yes, I also keep light corn syrup on hand. This can be used if an animal 'goes down' (cold and almost totally unresponsive) as a hand fed mix (50/50 with water) for a few drops to give the animal quick energy. Then switch to a pedialyte or other rehydrating solution. If you don't have any light cornsyrup, 1/8 cup sugar in 1 cup water will make a sweet liquid to use for this. [Or a 1:8 ratio for metric users]

See section on 'rehydration therapy' elsewhere on this website for how to rehydrate an animal.

19. Glass jar HALF full of water in the freezer at all times (if not several jars if you have more then one pet). Use GLASS becase rodents will chew and destroy bottles of plastic etc. Use HALF water because water expands when it freezes and filling it full will cause the bottle to crack and break. Use this if an animal displays signs of heatstroke (drooling on self, heavy or labored breathing, laying on its side stretched out, lethargic, vacant stare or loss of blinking reflex, etc. Skin pinched returns to position slowly instead of "snapping back" like normal skin). Wrap bottle on a paper towel and place beside animal so animal is touching it. As animal comes to, get it to take some pedialye (Above).

A 'blue ice' pack stuck against the tank glass from outside works too, a reverse of a warm corner.... For the jar use a quart canning jar, fill 2/3 full, freeze, THEN put lid and ring on it before use.

20. Permanent Marker. If you are handrearing babies and they all look alike, use the marker to colour patterns on their tails and/or feet to identify them.

Use a NONTOXIC marker. Gerbils will GROOM and Sharpie or Elmarko is not good ingested. Other thing to use is food grade food coloring. It might get groomed off too, but it will be safe to eat.

21. Card with your vets contact info, especially contact info in case of emergency (eg: 2 am or sunday calls). Also include contact info for other experienced gerbil fanciers to call if you can't contact a vet.

Yep. Vets are expensive after hours; and some don't have the luxury of being able to contact one after hours....and one or more of your gerbil friends might be up at that hour. :)

22. Sterile saline solution or sterile baby drinking water from a grocery store if the vet won't give you the vet solution (presc. only) for flushing deep wounds (tap water can contain bacteria!).

Boil water for 10 minutes in a non metal pan; then pour into a rinsed glass container (such as a canning jar-use some of the still hot water carefully so as not to crack the jar or burn yourself) and seal with a new lid/ring also rinsed off with the same sort of water.. Add one teaspoon per quart of water of rock salt before sealing. This will work once cooled to room temperature.

23. Topical antiseptic. Eg: betadine is very good. use to disinfect wounds and also instuments/objects etc. Caution it stains!. If you can't get that you can use hydrogen peroxide though its not as good and you can use rubbing alcohol in very MINOR scratches and to disinfect objects but do NOT use it on any other kind of wounds as it can damage the healthy tissue around the wound and cause severe pain and physical trauma to a lil critter.

Betadine stains horribly! But you can see where you've been with it. It is often expensive though. Peroxide can HURT, and animals often don't like to be treated with it. Avoid using alcohol as it is hydroscopic and will suck water from the tissues. Walgreens carries Betadine.

99% rubbing alcohol (I get mine at one grocery store chain store, just one store in town carries it... you can ask your pharmacist if they carry it. Walgreens here only carries 91% or very expensive little packaged wipes for insulin users) is very good for sterilizing instruments before use. Pour the alcohol over it or put the alcohol into a dish and dip the stuff.. Never stick something into the bottle to sterilize it, and never pour any alcohol once it's used back into the bottle. That can contaminate the alcohol. Don't smoke around it or where it's been used until all the smell is gone.

24. if possible, a scale. You can get them sold for weighing foods or for postal packages. They go up to 2 lbs and weigh oz's and grams. This is good for weighing sick animals or hand rearing babies to be sure they are maintaining or increasing weight and not losing weight (even a loss of an oz in a rodent in one day is SERIOUS and needs vet attention). Also good to weigh animals to figure out dosing of medicines.

A loss of more than 10% of body weight is serious in 24 hours. Most gerbils are under 4 ounces (115g) in weight. One ounce loss would be pretty much dehydrated dead.

The easiest way to weigh an animal is to get a small kritter keeper, weigh it empty with the lid on, and marker that on somewhere. Then just put the animal in, weigh the whole thing, and subtract the weight of the container.

25. Empty icecube tray. This sounds weird huh? If you need to use esbilac or gatorade or pedialye, while those have a long shelf life- once opened they only last a week at most in the fridge, sometimes less. You may need whats in the package longer then that with handrearing a litter or very sick animal. So what you do, is pour some of the liquid into ice cube trays and freeze them. Then, as needed, remove one cube, and warm it up till it melts and you have a liquid. (If giving to a heatstroke animal, you can leave it "chilled". If for a baby or other sick animal, you need to warm it up just a little warmer than room temp first. These will last a few weeks when frozen like this.

> >okey, Thats all i can think of off the top of my head for right now, lol! hope that helped!
> >
> >a.g. /myomorpha
> >http://www.rodentfancy.com

I would add a tweezers, not extra sharp point, but fairly fine. A fingernail clipper, like you use on your fingers. A baby one is great. Get a straight not curved edge one. They make 'side nip' ones that are really great, but expensive. A couple of disposable portion cups, the little plastic ones like they offer at fast-food places for sauces. Arbys has plastic ones!

Kaopectate. Children's formula. This is for extreme cases of diahrrea where nothing is stopping it and you're about to lose the animal to the dehydration. Contact me for dosing if you need it, as it often will kill the animal as save it. It is a last ditch effort to stop diahrrea.

Styptic pencil. A couple of them. They can also be used to help stop bleeding....

Jars of baby food; the strained puree stuff. Veggie medley (minimum) and berry cobbler (optional). These work for when you have to feed a very ill animal suddenly via syringe; they will keep for a long time unopened. I usually also keep applesauce and banana yogurt pudding. Get the very tiny Gerber's stage two jars, so there isn't much to go to waste when feeding a sick animal. Once open, refrigerate and it will keep a few days. Warm the bit you're going to feed the animal first as cold food will shock their system.

Neosporin ointment. This works to keep tissues moist, and if small amounts of ingested (the animal licks it all off) it won't kill them. It has a topical anesthetic.

Baggie full of Q-tips. Go for the quality here, they come apart less. They're great for all sorts of things. Just make sure the gerbil can't get to the cotton on the end and bite it off and swallow it. Get the COTTON type though, not the poly, and go for cardboard shaft not plastic. The cotton absorbs and applies stuff better, and the cardboard stick is easier to use actually.

A box of bandaids for yourself, 3/4" work fine. Despite best efforts, at times you'll get dinged up during care and maintenance, and having a bandaid to staunch the flow is nice. You can use some of the neosporin on yourself too.

From here down are some niceties....

I also keep a bottle of mite spray near tanks/cages (out of reach of little human pup hands) just in case. Hope you never have to use it, but if you do, it's great to get a start on it IMMEDIATELY. L&M has 0.06% pyrethrin. Walmart sells a bird mite spray that is 0.035 which will work in an emergency. You literally have to soak down the mites though. But you can get it at weird hours as most Super Walmarts are open 24 hours.

A couple of small and medium, and one large and one jumbo kritter keepers. These are great for transporting, hospital cages and in case you need to separate somebody NOW.

Extra waterbottle, already blacked out, for medicating.

Pill splitter, these are worth it, if you ever have to medicate.

Small mortar and pestle, places that sell healthfood and herbs usually have them cheap. Again, they make medicating so much easier. Mark it on the outside somehow and leave it dedicated to crushing ornacycline pills.

Flashlight. Gerbil safari hunting is so much easier.

Deb R