Hamster Wet Tail
What is Hamster Wet Tail and How to Deal With It
Hamster wet tail is an infection that is passed quite easily from one hamster to the next. It is very much like dysentery in human beings. The most obvious symptom is diarrhea, which in turn causes dehydration. Hamster wet tail is extremely contagious so the chances are good that if one hamster gets the disease, they all will. Other symptoms of wet tail include your hamster’s fur with dried feces, inactiveness, not eating or drinking, or having an off odor.
There is often no way to determine if your pet has hamster wet tail before bringing him home. The primary cause is stress. The hamster will have been stressed by being taken from the place where he was born and transported to the pet store. He still may appear healthy, but when you purchase him and bring him home, that is a second large stress, which may precipitate the onslaught of the disease.
Most people whose pets acquire hamster wet tail do not take them to a veterinarian. There is a medication commonly available at pet stores that can treat the infection. It’s called Dri-tail. This medicine can be given to the hamster via his water bottle or directly as per the instructions. If your hamster is very sick and has had frequent bouts of diarrhea, you will probably be best served using both methods. You can also start to re-hydrate the hamster with some water in an eyedropper.
When buying a hamster, ask the salesperson if they know the age of the hamster--very young hamsters are more prone to the disease than older ones. Some of the best pet stores pre-treat their hamsters for wet tail by adding the medicine to their water bottles while they are still in the store. Ask if your pet store does this, and if they have a two-week guarantee on the hamster if it should contract the infection. Also ask if any other hamsters out of the same cage have had hamster wet tail. Any reputable pet store will have no problem answering questions like these.
Whenever you bring home a hamster, you should try to cause the least amount of stress possible. This means that even though you may want to hold the animal a lot, you should not, because it will cause undue stress. The hamster needs time to smell your scent, get used to his new home, and get to know you gradually. Put the hamster in a nice, quiet room, especially in the beginning.
Making sure your hamster has food and fresh water at all times is important, as is changing the bedding every couple days the first few days home. Most hamsters cannot be housed together after they are six to eight weeks old or they will fight and can even kill one another. But if you do have hamsters housed together, the hamster wet tail infection will most likely affect all of them.
If you take care when choosing your hamster, reduce stress as much as possible, and try the preventative hamster wet tail medication in your pet’s water bottle, you should not have to worry about the hamster wet tail infection.