pet medication saga continued, or how Kieran really hates the taste of his antibiotic

[ratcreature]

For Kieran's evening dose I tried soy chocolate pudding (which I specifically bought this afternoon as non-dairy thing to mix the meds in), figuring it might mask the sickly sweet taste better than mashed potatoes. Unlike for some other pets such as dogs and cats, chocolate is not toxic to rats, their theobromine metabolism is similar to humans so relative to their weight they can eat about as much chocolate as a human to theirs. And my current ones like the taste of chocolate (not every rat does -- I've had some that just didn't eat it as a treat), though of course normally I don't feed it them, not even as a treat. Their usual treats are things like small plain rice waffle pieces or organic spelt cheerios. Anyway, when I tried offering the unadultered food as a tease to see whether it might be popular (just a mouthful, obviously you don't want a full, choosy rat if you mix in substances -- I always give stuff before refilling the food bowl too) it was A+++: both shoved and scrambled to get a lick in and tried to pull the spoon with the bit of pudding out of my hand.

So I was really hopeful.

Then I mixed a teaspoon with his meds and offered it to Kieran alone. The pudding slipped down dramatically on the popularity scale. Initially he seemed hopeful, but a few initially greedy licks in he noticed and stopped. I had locked him in with the little dish in the transport box again, to prevent Rusty from getting at it, but he soon abandoned the pudding, and focused his attention on probing the transport box. I then took him out, because this was heading in the direction of him just stepping into the food during the escape attempts and smearing it all over eventually, and tried prompting him to eat the stuff directly on my lap.

So I shoved the dish under his nose, he licked at it a little, as if hoping that it might have gone back to just chocolate pudding, noticed that nope, not what he hoped, and then stopped again. Then when I prompted again, he licked again, but much less enthusiastically, and once again stopped. Unfortunately even a small teaspoon takes quite a lot of rat licks to be eaten, which ordinarily you don't notice, because with appealing food they can lick very fast. At this point he was clearly frustrated that I was keeping him on my lap, but at least it was more of a peaceful, evasive resistance, not violent struggle.

Eventually I managed to get him to to mostly lick the dish clear (over 95%) so eventually the evening dose got into him. But honestly it's just wrong having to press a rat so much to eat a small amount of chocolate pudding. And I'll have to do this another twelve times minimum, and this is the optimistic scenario that he won't become completely obstinate. OTOH maybe he'll eventually get used to the taste once he realizes that I'm not trying to slip him rat poison.

Comments

[krait]

Oh, dear. At least you did manage to get most of it down him eventually!

Would it, perhaps, be possible to dilute it in a larger amount of pudding? (I have no idea what a rat's, or Kieran's, stomach capacity is, but if it's larger than a teaspoon...) Or split between two teaspoons, fifteen minutes apart?

Best of luck either way! (Reading this, I keep thinking of the cat at work who's currently pink because guess what? he doesn't like the taste of his antibiotic, either.) :D

[droolfangrrl]

Wow, good luck with him. I'm really fortunate that guinea pigs aren't as picky. Mine loved the taste of his antibiotics.

[ratcreature]

From my past experience diluting it further is risky because that is too much to eat at once. For comparison, the portioning for the complete rat food kibble is usually just 15-20g/day and rat. They don't need that much.

Even if they like a food, they rather eat a bit, and then hide some for later. For example even with egg, which is pretty much the top of their "best foods ever", they won't eat more than an eighth of a medium egg at once (well, first they eat the yolk). Even Kieran, who is a glutton, won't eat that much of the same food, even if he still wants to eat something, he then prefers to switch for some variety.

[ratcreature]

Well, in my by now quite broad experience with antibiotics for rats (some of mine have cycled through more than half a dozen over their lives), it depends on the individual antibiotic and the rat, and the amount. There are some that taste just objectively horrible. I tried a tiny drop of Baytril against my tongue once, much less than even the rat dose, and it was awful. It coated my mouth, and lingered even after rinsing out my mouth, and I then could totally understand why my rats tend frantically wipe their snouts to rid themselves of the aftertaste after I forced it on them. But even with the ones that are supposed to taste okay, individual rats vary. Like how Rusty had no trouble eating this one (well, he wasn't that fond, but licked it up from the syringe with just some urging), whereas Kieran is difficult with it.

I once had to give an antibiotic that orginially was meant to be given as syrup to human children, and my vet assured me that with the sugary fake-cherry taste rats would love it. Nope. Mine then hated it. I couldn't force it pure, and they refused it even mixed. I tried mixing it into jam, into pudding, into mashed potatoes... More than a trace of this stuff and the food was refused.

So you might have worse luck with a different antibiotic or a different guinea pig.

[droolfangrrl]

Naw, they don't have the eclectic diet, nor do they have the brainiest animal on the planet trying to poison them. So they're suckers for anything with enough sugar.