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Deadly Skin Disease in Palm Squirrels

2/13/2016

5 Comments

 
Picture
In late July of 2015 a delightful young lady from Sri Lanka contacted me about a skin disease that she was treating on a female Palm Squirrel named Tishi. She was able to send pictures which revealed some kind of flesh eating disease that had engulfed the squirrel's entire tail, and was advancing onto the lower body. The squirrel was quite ill, and had started chewing the tail off segment by segment.
I had no idea as to what was causing this disease, but was willing to try to help her. After learning what she was treating it with, I made a few suggestions and agreed to send her an Immune system boosting herb to try. Time was not on our side, as it took over 3 weeks for my package to arrive. She was able to start giving the drops, and for a while, the squirrels seemed to be rallying. She said that it's appetite came back, but that there was very little change in the appearance of the disease.

Unfortunately, the treatment was too little, too late, because when the squirrel tried chewing off some of the last segments of the tail, it must have opened the artery and the squirrel lost a considerable amount of blood and died of probable hypovolemic shock secondary to sepsis.

Needless to say, we were both devastated that we were not able to help Tishi! A few days later I received another e-mail from this young lady. She had another Palm Squirrel named Timmy that developed a red, raw lesion on one of it's rear legs. She informed me that this was exactly how Tishi's condition had started, and wanted to know what to do. Since she had the herb drops from Tishi, I told her to start giving it to Timmy in the same amount. She sent me an initial picture of the leg.

About one week later, she sent a second picture. In this picture I saw a considerable amount of induration surrounding the lesion, something that the young lady described as “brewing up.” It somewhat had the appearance of getting worse, but within a few day she wrote and said that the lesion appeared to be going away. And indeed it did completely heal and go away.

Since that time, I have receive numerous inquiries, mainly from India, from people who had other Palm Squirrels with similar skin conditions. Each time I received these inquiries I would have them take pictures of the lesions, then I would forward them to the young lady in Sri Lanka to get her opinion on them. Since she still had a considerable amount of the herb left, she was willing to send some to these people to get their squirrel started on the treatment, so that I would have the time to mail more to replace what she had given.

Unfortunately, these people had waited too long to seek help, and their squirrels were already in an advanced stage of the disease. Every time we tried to make arrangements to send the herb, the squirrel would die before arrangements were made.

Over the past few months I've been doing research on flesh eating diseases that are endemic to that area of the world, and believe that I may have found what is causing this devastating disease in Palm Squirrels. I believe it is a condition called “Cutaneous Leishmaniasis,” a flesh eating parasite that is spread by the bite of sand flies.

I also found that the substance that I used as a diluent, preservative and carrier of the herb that I sent, was an effective treatment for this disease. So, it appears that the combination of these substances are effective in the treatment and cure of this disease.

The problem still remained about the time required to get this to people on time to treat their squirrels before it killed them! I believe that we just may have come up with a solution to this problem!

This same young lady, that initially contacted me about her squirrels, has agreed to join me as an associate and representative in her area of the world. We are in the process of getting her set up to compound and distribute this product to the people of India and Sri Lanka, plus any other area that it may be needed. Instead of a 3 week window, we are now going to be able to cut that time to a week or less!

I'm really excited to welcome this young lady, who's name is Shanaz, as she shares our same love and passion for squirrels! But, also the fact that she shares the same values and care for the people who love these little creatures, and will be helping us fulfill our company motto of, “Loving people, one squirrel at a time!”

If you, or anyone you know has a Palm Squirrel with a skin condition that resembles this, or is not responding to treatment, we have set up a Web page with information, pictures and a contact form that will enable us to get this treatment to you.

Please click HERE to access this page!







5 Comments

    Author

    William Sells is a Registered Nurse turned Squirrel Rehabber and Nutritionist. His passion is raising healthy, disease free squirrels through feeding them the right way and the treatment of common squirrel diseases. He's always open to questions and comments regarding Squirrels and their care and feeding.

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