need tips on giving oral meds to mice

Well, the subject line says it all. Our mice need a short course of oral
meds, and we're having a heck of a time giving it to them. Lotus is fairly
compliant but Buddha (contrary to her name) becomes absolutely frantic if we
hold her and try to give her the meds. (Baytril, smells bad, tastes worse,
can't really blame them for the fuss.)

With our guinea pigs, we can hold them face forward and angle the syringe
into the corner of their mouth to administer meds. This same size syringe
(1 ml) pretty much fills the whole mouth of a mouse, though.

Any tips, website links (with pictures would be ideal), etc. would be most
welcome!

Thanks,
Patricia

I am in the midst of giving Pipeline, my one-year old mouse who HATES the
smell of humans, a course of antibiotics. It's complicated by the fact that
she either has an inner ear infection or something neurological which is
forcing her to spin around as though she is constantly trying to right
herself. Poor thing.

I have had several mice on oral antibiotics over the past 2 years. With the
tough ones the best you can do is just try. I have a way of holding the
mouse in the palm, using my thumb and forefingers to kind of hold their
"scruff" (but not too hard!) and aim the syringe at the corner of their
mouth. If you miss and get it on their mouth region they'll usually clean
it off themselves, just make sure no cage mate helps them clean it off. Of
course the dosing isn't accurate if you can't get it directly into the
mouth.

There was a post a while back about possibly drowning a mouse by forcing
liquid down its throat. To prevent this try not to squirt a large amount at
one time (i.e. if you have to give .1ml, which usually amounts to about 2
drops, try giving one drop at a time.) Your mouse is going to freak out -
it's normal because they don't know what's happening. Some are easier than
others, but I've never been bitten so somehow I think they know you're
trying to help (at least this thought makes it easier on ME).

I hope this helps a little.
Meghan

"Patricia Simon" <spamfree RemoveThis @shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:2quumrF14hpstU1@uni-berlin.de...
> Well, the subject line says it all. Our mice need a short course of oral
> meds, and we're having a heck of a time giving it to them. Lotus is
fairly
> compliant but Buddha (contrary to her name) becomes absolutely frantic if
we
> hold her and try to give her the meds. (Baytril, smells bad, tastes
worse,
> can't really blame them for the fuss.)
>
> With our guinea pigs, we can hold them face forward and angle the syringe
> into the corner of their mouth to administer meds. This same size syringe
> (1 ml) pretty much fills the whole mouth of a mouse, though.
>
> Any tips, website links (with pictures would be ideal), etc. would be most
> welcome!
>
> Thanks,
> Patricia
>
>