Advice Re: Travel

[AlbertaGirl]

My boyfriend and I are planning a short trip for next weekend (leaving Friday around lunchtime and coming back Sunday morning). The place we are going is about a two hour drive away. I don't have anyone who can come and look after Ronnie while we're gone so I'm thinking about bringing her along. Even though we won't be gone for that long, it would mean that she would miss 4 meals and two doses of Metacam, which I don't think is acceptable. Phoebe is finally eating out of a dish again so she'll be fine, but Ron needs to be syringe fed.

I have a smaller sized travel cage (about 2 sq ft) that I can mount her ceramic heat emitter and light on, and its not too difficult to set up her timer and thermostat. She just sleeps all the time anyway so I don't think she'll care if she's sleeping in a hotel room or in my living room, as long as she's warm and her belly is full.

Do you think the stress of the trip would be worse for her than being left alone for a day and a half? I really don't want to leave her, but I don't want to stress her out too much either. I'm really torn over this - none of my family live in the same city and it would be too much driving for them to come in 4 times to look after her. I also don't think that they would be comfortable holding, feeding, and medicating her, as they don't have a lot of experience with hogs. I thought of boarding her at the vet clinic, but I don't know if they would have the time or the experience to look after her like I do. Am I being too overprotective? Its just that she's so old and I want to do what's best for her.

 

[Kalandra]

This may not be much help, but you will have to make a judgement call. Have you ever traveled her before? How does she react to change?

If you do travel, try to keep things as normal as possible. Try to keep things smelling like home where you can. Keep her feeding and medication schedule on target. Keep her area as quiet as you can. Basically reduce any stressful things as much as you can.

I hate to travel elderly or sick, but I have done it before (outside of vet trips). I always try to keep their schedules unchanged (includes interaction). Weigh them daily, and monitor extra closely for any changes. Good luck with whichever you choose.

 

[AlbertaGirl]

I had to take one of my other critters in to the clinic today, so I talked it over with the vet. He is not in favour of her making a long car trip and then being in a new place. I've reached a compromise... she will be staying home, but my Mom said she would come in on Saturday around lunchtime to feed and medicate her. I'm going to show her how to do it sometime this week. This way she gets her meds and she gets fed. I'm going to syringe feed her and then leave some of her food in a dish in her cage when I leave on Friday, and my Mom will syringe feed her and put some new food in the dish on Saturday. Then I'll be home Sunday afternoon. I hope that'll be good enough. I'm very anxious about leaving her for so long!

 

[jmdebb]

If you can not find anyone to come in and feed them and to check on them, personally, I think that in itself can be dangerous. With chins, you never know when something will happen. But please don't leave them alone, even for just 2 days. Something can happen and you will never forgive yourself.

I have read many times that people do take their chins on vacation. A small carrying cage is great for the car. If you do take them just remember these things. Never put them in direct sunlight in the car, if you put the air conditioner on make sure it doesn't blow right on them, and if you don't have air conditioning in the car, well than that can cause problems because if it's really hot, they can over heat. I would bring some extra things along [emergency kit stuff] in case someone did get sick while on vacation. And try to keep things as calm as can be with them because they do stress out alot.

YOu mentioned you don't have anyone to come over and watch them. Is it that you don't have close friends where you live, or just that the friends you have don't know about chins? If it's the second question, what you can do is this [and this is what I did when I was in the hospital for a few days.] Get a friend you can trust. Tell her who your vet is in case of an emergency, and verbally tell her what to look for re: signs your chin might be getting ill and will need to go see a vetv[ie, lose stool, not eating..lathargy..etc].. Also, very important, also write everything down on paper too so they can refer to it because no one that doesn't know chins will ever remember this stuff. Write your vets name and number down too. And then maybe you can call in everyday to see how everything is going and how they are doing.

I obviously don't know if that is something you can do, but just a suggestion for you so you would be able to leave them home. ALso if you can do this, have them go over more than once a day just in case.

Good luck with all this
Jean

 

[Mander]

I believe you are talking about your Hedgehogs...

I have left mine alone for 2 days and they were just fine. If your mom is going to come over and feed and medicate than I would think it should be okay.

 

[AlbertaGirl]

Yup, pricklepigs. I feel better about this decision than about bringing her with me. I think the less stress she has at this age, the better. I just hope she's here to greet me when I get home.

 

[jmdebb]

:banghead:

just wanted to say SORRY, i didn't realize you were talking about hedgehogs, it wasn't mentioned in your post and because I have chins, I just did the assuming bit [which one should never do]. so scratch everything i said because i know nothing about hedgehogs.

Jean

 

[Nancy]

:banghead:

just wanted to say SORRY, i didn't realize you were talking about hedgehogs, it wasn't mentioned in your post and because I have chins, I just did the assuming bit [which one should never do]. so scratch everything i said because i know nothing about hedgehogs.

Jean

heehee, that's why it was posted in the hedgie section.

 

[jmdebb]

heehee, that's why it was posted in the hedgie section.

I admit I can be an idiot at times, I've turned into my mother :hair: don't always read everything... I just went into the new posts and saw it and thought I would try to help.

I must admit though, those guys are sooo cute, I do wish i had some...

Jean

 

[AlbertaGirl]

LOL, no worries! I appreciate that you took the time to respond.