Fritz question

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Crysta, I know everyone that is/has helped get this fellow a better life should be thanked, but ultimately the good Lord has had a plan for him from the very begining just as he does with us humans. Little Fritz has touched many lives already and will touch many more.Just look out how obstacles were suddenly overcome on the RR.I know he cleared some really big last minute could have been problems for me and Tammy to be able to RR him to you. God gives us the responsibility, not the right to care for His creatures. Unfortunately some people don't see things that way. He has already seen to it that Fritz has had love,care,and basic care that he has probably never had before. Hold tight to that, keep praying ,and let God work the plan for Fritz.He deserves all praise and thanks for making this RR/rescue possible. I'll be praying for you/Fritz/and his Dr today and will try to check for update tonight when we get to Va.Love and prayers,give Fritz a kiss on his wittle nose from me and Tammy.:angel7:
 
Fritz will be in my thoughts constantly today. I hope the vet visit gives you some good news for the little guy and all his problems are easy fixes. The poor little guy needs time to heal and to recover from all the disruptions he has experienced over the last week or so. You are amazing for taking on the whole mess and all that helped to get him to you are angels. He has a lot of people pulling for him. Sending hugs, kisses, scritches and snuggles to the little fuzzball.
 
Essentia said:
Pray for Fritz and me this morning. Vet appt is at 10:40am. I completely broke down on the way to work last night. The utter neglect that he went through just all caught up to me at once and I couldn't handle it. I had to pull over the car I was crying so hard. This poor baby doesn't deserve what he went through, and what he will continue to go through while he gets better. This morning my prayer is for no malocclusion, an uneventful tooth filing, a healing non-infected wound, and a plan for his fur...oh, and to hopefully not find anything else that may be hiding.
Click to expand...

Keeping you and Fritz in my thoughts today. I will be leaving my home shortly for another business trip taking me past the route I took when rescuing Fritz for the first leg of the rail road. Hope all goes well and that you can have some good news to brighten your day.
 
Please update on facebook when you get home. I won't be able to access CnH until I get home from work tonight, but can get on FB from my phone. Sending best wishes to Fritz. C'mon little guy, you can do it!
 
We're back!

So good news and bad news, though mainly good news. While he was knocked out for his teeth filing we decided to try and pull the mats out instead of an all out shave. Dr. Hart, myself, and two techs went to town. About 15-20 min. later, we got 99% of the mats off his sleeping body. The only bit left is the dirty whatever on his upper chest/neck area. They aren't mats per say, just yuck, which I think I can clean over time. We couldn't really clean it well there since his little mask went over his face and part of his neck, right where I needed to clean. All the mats we could feel are gone though. The water bath I gave him yesterday helped immensely as everything wasn't caked together, just matted.

Other than the incisors (which he trimmed), his teeth looked amazing, and even then the incisors were just long. They match up perfectly, and mot a single point anywhere, counting the molars. I didn't believe him, so he opened his mouth again and showed me. His teeth are remarkably perfect. The xray machine was down (a tech was there trying to fix it) so we didn't take xrays, but I have to go back in two weeks anyway. Dr. Hart said with as good as his teeth look he wouldn't spend the money on it, but I just want to be sure. When we go back for his wound check I'll make sure to get it done.

Dr. Hart thinks that his little hands, arms, and tail fur issues are from poor nutrition. He found no signs of fungus. Unfortunately we will never know what happened to his little hands. In case you didn't read my facebook, on one hand he has no fingers at all, and the other hand he has a few fingers but most are crooked and slightly deformed. He is able to use that hand though, so it doesn't seem to bother him.

Now on to the wound. It's larger than I thought. Once the fur was shaved we realized just how large it was. I would say about the size of a quarter. Dr. Hard said he doesn't like closing up wounds that have been "contaminated" but because it was so gaping his put in 2 stitches just to bring two points to close. It is still open though to drain if it needs to. Dr. Hart said that wound was almost deadly. Because he has no fat anywhere, it was literally skin and then the outer covering to his organs with no fat to be found. The only thing left is that extremely thin outer covering to the organs. He said a millimeter more and whoever cut him would have had intestines in their hand...

That being said, he came out of anesthesia well and when we got home he ate 15ml of CC. He is also currently on metacam and sulfa. Because of the nature of the wound, do you guys recommend I keep him on the sulfa, or switch him over to baytril? There is currently no infection, but I want to keep it that way so I want to see what you guys think.
 
I'm glad his teeth look so good! Yay!

Poor little guy...I can't believe how close they came with that wound!! He is such a lucky little man. I don't think I would go to the baytril unless an infection crops up because of the possible anorexia issue. We need him to keep up his healthy appetite! Sulfa is pretty good at warding off infection and it did an awesome job with Diesel's leg/feet infeciton. Should it become infected, I would consider the switch to baytril. Just my opinion though. Are you still cleaning the wound with any disinfectant or blu-koting it?
 
He did say to clean it with the chlorhexidine wash, but didn't mention anything about the blukote. He didn't say not to either though. I have it here, but other than fungus I've never had to use it other than yesterday when I put it on his wound. How often should it be applied, it at all to this type of wound?
 
well it sounds like while fritz has a long road of recovery, he is definietly on the mend!
great job.
i agree w/stacie, keep him on the trimeth. than if it does get infected you can bust out the big guns!
dr hart sounds like a wonderful vet! you are lucky.
 
I think the chlorhexidine may be enough. Blu-koting it may be a bit of an overkill, since both are basically meant to disinfect the wound. I'm not sure if it could hurt to apply both, though. I mainly focused on cleaning Diesel's legs with the chlorhexidine washes, and put blu-kote on occasionally just to help dry up the raw skin. I could tell the blu-kote really hurt him when I put it on the raw skin, though. I didn't start regularly applying the blu-kote until after the 2 weeks of chlorhexidine washes were up and the legs had started to heal just to keep any bacteria away that could reinfect him. Anytime I've used blu-kote for wound management, I applied it once a day.

Just talked to Tab about it and she said blu-kote doesn't really promote healing, so the chlorhexidine would probably be best to use for now until he starts to heal up. :))
 
Last edited:
I'm glad to hear Fritz's mouth was better than expected. I would still get the xrays in 2 weeks as without them there is no way of telling what is going on with the roots and it would be good to also get a look at what is going on in the rest of his body.

As was mentioned earlier, I would keep him on the sulfa as long as he is healing. The last thing he needs in inappetence. The boy needs to eat and eat and eat.

Don't use Blu-Kote. It will stain the wound purple and you won't be able to keep an eye on the color for any signs of infection or necrotic tissue.

You're doing a great job with him, keep up the good work.
 
+1 on the chlorhexidine and no blu-kote. When I went through something similar, I dabbed the (stapled) wound with gauze soaked with the chlorhexidine1-2x daily. I also had to bandage her because she was trying to pull out the staples, so keep an eye on Fritz's stiches. It's amazing how wounds hide their severity under fur.

Anyhow, I'm so relieved that he is ok other than the things you mentioned. While he's going to require a bit of work, he is definitely going to have a special place in your heart;)
 
menagerie said:
I'm glad to hear Fritz's mouth was better than expected. I would still get the xrays in 2 weeks as without them there is no way of telling what is going on with the roots and it would be good to also get a look at what is going on in the rest of his body.

As was mentioned earlier, I would keep him on the sulfa as long as he is healing. The last thing he needs in inappetence. The boy needs to eat and eat and eat.

Don't use Blu-Kote. It will stain the wound purple and you won't be able to keep an eye on the color for any signs of infection or necrotic tissue.

You're doing a great job with him, keep up the good work.
Click to expand...

Seconded. :thumbsup:
 
Glad to hear the news is mostly good for the little guy. I hope he heals fast and starts putting on some weight. I suspect he will be a very handsome little man when this is all over.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top