Chin won't take her Acidophilus

[Brittany]

One of the girls has developed a case of large and soft poo (squishy when stepped on) I haven't given her any treats in 3 days and she's been on a hay and water diet for 24 hours. After seeing no improvement I gave her a capsule worth of Acidophilus powder mixed with some pellets. She took one bite and started kacking and grunting at the food. Now she's scaling her cage like a mad woman and wont touch it. I need to get this poop situation under control, any suggestions on how to get her to eat the Acidophilus or anything else I can try for the poop?:hmm:

 

[Brittney]

My boys get the flavored Tablets that are milk free. They are strawberry flavored and they love them. They have 1g of sugar which really isn't horrible. Maybe look for some kind of flavored tablet that she can chew on instead of sprinkling it on her food.

 

[Brittany]

Hmm we will give that a go. Meijer naturals offers a grape flavored chewable, and walgreens has strawberry. I'll check the sugar content in each. When their poo is soft how often do you give it to them. Once a day?

 

[Brittney]

Yeah. I give it once a day with an activated charcoal covered sheddie

 

[Stackie]

I don't like giving the strawberry flavored wafers of acidophilus, even if they have 1 gram of sugar...I'd rather give none since that sort of seems to cancel out the whole point of giving acidophilus IMO. They also aren't very high in bacteria count. You want a fairly large count for the bacteria to even reach the GI system. If I remember correctly most of those wafers only have 1 billion count. You want at least 10 billion when trying to deal with a squishy poo issue.

What always works for me is breaking open a capsule and sprinkling it over some oats and mixing it together. It sticks to the oats fairly well and the chins don't think twice about eating it.

 

[Chinmama]

You can also try sprinkling it on an unsweetened shredded wheat square.

 

[ticklechin]

I use pet pecillin, couple of doses clears it up and the chins like the flavor.

 

[Brittany]

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I decided to stick with the capsules since I already bought them, they're sugar free, and have 5 billion count. She kacked at/snubbed the oat mixture and the shredded wheat. I was reading on another thread that pumpkin is high in fiber and used to mix supplements. I bought a can that had 4g of sugar, and I only used 1/2 a spoon full to mix the acidophilus. She HATES it, I had to hold her and smear it on her teeth to get her to lick it down, but atleast I know she's ingesting it. It's been 24 hours and her poo is smaller (normal size!) but still soft. It's starting to come out light brown instead of black, I'm assuming its from the hay only diet? Has anyone experienced this? I'm hoping that since it has shrunk it will start to harden up soon. I'll be calling the vet tomorrow to ask about getting the poop tested just in case though. Any more advise is greatly appreciated!

 

[MelodyR]

Although many chins do very well on it and it is very popular, I always got a soft poo issue when I tried to add amall amts of Mazuri pellets to their diet. What do you feed her? I tried multiple times all with the same result - soft poo. Spent money on fecal exams (always neg), vet, etc, but the soft poos always stopped when I removed the Mazuri, and started again when I tried to add it, even in tiny amounts. (I did the recommended way, not a quick change - didn't matter)

So now, for five years now, they stay on Klines (and the supplement) only and I have never again had another problem.

 

[Brittany]

She gets oxbow chinchilla deluxe pellets and Kaytee brand timothy hay.