Daisy our hamster is dead. After Bella died earlier this month I decided I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Daisy and a few weeks ago I took her to the vet.
It can be hard to tell when a hamster is unwell as they’re out at night when we’re asleep and both Bella and Daisy continued to eat right up until the end. Nevertheless I noticed Daisy wasn’t using her wheel which was unusual as she was always a big wheel runner. To confirm this I put the wildlife camera in her cage overnight and not once did she run on the wheel. Her ears were also flattened. Hamster ears usually stick up. The vet decided a course of antibiotics was the way to go along with a worming treatment. I also completely disinfected everything.
I didn’t notice much change in her during the 7 days of antibiotics other than she gained a bit of weight which was probably a good sign. But then on Sunday she developed wet tail too – this was 4 days after the end of the antibiotic treatment. Hamsters with wet tail rarely survive but I took her the vet yesterday anyway. The vet prescribed a much higher dose of antibiotic but she died overnight.
In a way I feel a bit better now about Bella because Daisy died even though I took her to the vet early and she got treatment. It makes me think it wouldn’t have made any difference for Bella either. Perhaps whatever they had was resistant to antibiotics? They were both the same age and sisters so it also stands to reason that they likely had the same genetic susceptibility to whatever it was.
Fortunately we had a visitor in our backyard last night and the night before that has cheered me up a bit. Can you see the eyes poking under the fence in this next photo?
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