Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Nothing cranks up the gears like panic....

So, I had someone come by to adopt in the morning today, they took home the cute little blazed white mosaic female, the one that couldn't be picked up last week because of soft poos.  Those had cleared up, and she went home.

So, after they left, I was walking past the cages and noticed that both Maddie and Ozzie have loose poo.  Nooooo.  The person who's been talking to me about Maddie for awhile wouldn't be picking her up for another month, so I have time to deal with that, but Ozzie is supposed to be picked up Saturday.  Naturally. 

And so I went to get my medicated supplement for the loose poos, which was in a glass jar.  Note the word "was."  I say "was," because I knocked it over and needless to say, am not giving supplement laced with glass shards, so I had to let Jim know that I need more.  Typical.  Sets things back again.

Well, so the hard thing with loose poos, is it's hard to say what causes it.  Only Ozzie and Maddie are affected, but a few other chins have poo residue on their food bowls, so that made me go into panic mode.  I pulled all the food bowls for the ferret nations and the rat stack (which does have chins in it at the moment), and swapped those out for clean ones.  Washed the ones that were on the cages. 

Then started in on water bottles.  In case it's somehow my water, I disassembled my katadyn filter, scrubbed it to death, reassembled, and ran fresh water through it.  Got almost all the bottles done on the ferret nation cages.... over the course of the day (I noticed the poos in the morning).  See, even though I sell the bottles, I try not to have 4000 extras for my own use, because it's rare for me to want to change over all the bottles at once (short of something like this, of course).  So I had a few in my drawer, I had to wait for the water to go through the filter, then filled those up, back on the cage.  Got most of the edstrom bottles done as well.  Kept adding water to the filter, and taking the clean water out, to keep switching out bottles.  Got most of the ferret nation cages done.  Need to work on the plastic water bottles, runs, and rat stack tomorrow.  And of course, spent half the day washing water bottles.

So then, I have more chins coming in tomorrow night, and some cages with them, so I needed to clear a space on my table for the cages.  Well, if you've seen that table anytime within the past few months, it's sort of been a collect-all table.  You know which one I'm talking about.  So I started moving things around, trying to clean it so I could fit the cages on the table.  Well, I found my blu-kote. 

Not sure if I posted it here, but we had a tail injury here (the little white female that went home today) and I needed blu-kote.  For the life of me, I could not find my bottle.  And I have TWO and I could not find either.  I have a drawer specifically for medical stuff (well, two of those...) and neither drawer had it... and I was getting frustrated, til I remembered that Jean (TJ's) had donated an emergency kit.  Which, naturally, I'd never looked through (and still haven't... though this was a few days ago), but I thought, I bet she thought to put blu-kote in.  And she did, a tiny little spray bottle of it.  Score!!  So I sprayed the girl's tail and she's fine now. 

Anyway, that was a few days ago, but today... I found the blu-kote!  I had both bottles in a quart sized ziploc bag that was zipped closed.  Good thing, cause one had leaked everywhere.  Ok, now, if you've ever had blu-kote leak / spill / get on you or anything it's not supposed to, you know what a pain that can be, so let's all collectively "ugh" groan in disgust.  Ok, one, two, three.... UGGGGGGHHHHHH.  Believe me, if you've ever spilled it and had to clean it up, or gotten it on your hands, or anything of the sort, you are groaning right along with me.  The one bottle was almost completely blu-kote free, the other was purple.  And still wet.  So... I got on plastic gloves, opened the baggie... got the clean one out with a rag, and then got the other one out.  Laid it down, sprayed it down with my cage cleaning mixture (simple green concentrate, vinegar, water) and started wiping.  Got a new rag, wiped some more.  Sprayed some more, wiped some more.  Sprayed even more, wiped even more.  Dropped the bottle (ahhhhh!!!), cause come on, slippery, cleaned up that mess, sprayed some more cleaner, wiped some more.  Eventually, I did get it mostly clean, though the bottle still is a bit tinged purple (it should be yellow).  But that's better than the entire bottle being dark purple.  And even with the gloves, I got some on one of my hands, so that'll be there for like a week. 

If you've never dealt with blu-kote, it's a farm-animal antiseptic.  You can find it at tractor supply.  It's like neosporin for people, except you spray or dab it on.  I generally dab it on with a q-tip, but sometimes the spray is useful for larger areas (plus, when spraying, you're not opening the bottle, which eliminates the chance of you accidentally dumping the entire thing).  It's supposed to prevent infection and help keep the wound clean.  It works wonders... I've had chins heal from things with the use of blu-kote that I never thought they would... it really does work and helps keep the wound infection free.  The main ingredient in it is gentian violet, which is dark dark purple, almost black in color (until you spill it on something -- then you see the purple).  It stains ridiculously quickly -- you will never see me use blu-kote without either a junk towel, standing over a (mostly filled -- so, wide open) garbage bag, or something of the sort.  Cause it somehow always manages to get everywhere.  I've had bottles of the stuff slip, I've had animals knock it over (both out of my grasp and knock it over when it's sitting somewhere), it you're covering any area larger than a q-tip head, it will drip....  It works nicely, but it also causes a mess if you're not careful.  So I typically do it over a towel, or in the case where I was spraying the chin's tail, over a garbage bag.  Because when it gets on something... good luck getting it off.  It stains almost immediately.  Rubbing alcohol helps some in getting it off, but since it stains so quick, you pretty much have the bottle of the rubbing alcohol sitting next to you for it to do any good.  You spill the blu-kote, you dump down the bottle of rubbing alcohol.  That is your best shot for getting it off of whatever you spilled it on.  Otherwise, you will likely have a purple stain for life.  I have learned, if I'm going to mess with blu-kote (and dyeing toys, and other things that involve things that will stain), I better put on some gloves (as in, like the disposable latex kind).  Cause you can throw those away... versus good luck explaining why all your fingers are purple to the second knuckle to your boss at work.  Those gloves work wonders.

Now that I'm finally upstairs for the day, the table is 2/3 clean.  I got ready a supply order that's picking up early (early enough I don't want to get up even earlier to get it ready), and found the paperwork that I already wrote out a few days ago for the pickup of the beige male (tomorrow as well). 

Now I just have to look at my list of people and see who's coming when, and work on getting those people's stuff that they need ready...

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