Sterile Ringer's Solution can be made up ahead of time and used to administer emergency rehydration to small mammals, including sugar gliders. Below is a simple standard recipe that can be used until you can get the glider to a vet.

After this is made up it should be put in small canning jars or vacuum sealed retort bags and pressure cooked for a minimum of 20 minutes in a pressurized steam canner. Once it is sterilized it can be stored for up to 2 or 3 years as long as the seal is not broken. Once opened it should be refrigerated and kept no more than 1 week.

This solution can be given orally or it can be administered under the skin via syringe (ask your vet to show you how).

You will need a scale that can measure in 10ths of a gram for this recipe, which makes one liter of solution.

Ma 2(Locke..)
NaCl (154.00 mM): table salt - 9.0 grams - don't use iodine fortified salt!
KCl (5.64 mM): Morton salt substitute OR NOW brand Potassium Chloride powder - 0.4 grams
CaCl2 (2.16 mM): Calcium Chloride powder - 0.2 – 0.3 grams
dextrose (11.10 mM): granular dextrose - 1.3 grams
*NaHCO3 (2.38 mM): baking soda - 0.2 grams (*add LAST)
H2O: To 1 Liter

Add the baking soda last (after water is added) to prevent the calcium from precipitating out of the solution.

This is only one of several suitable recipes for Ringer's solution for small mammals from the Biological Bulletin Compendia. You can find more recipes here:

http://www.mbl.edu/BiologicalBulletin/COMPENDIUM/CompTab7.html

Calcium Chloride can be purchased here:

http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=8832019&pfx=

Granular dextrose is Corn Sugar. It can be purchased online.

Diane

The mods here do not like this kind of stuff being posted. That being said... it sounds like a good idea for those that have access to equipment for this process. I'm gonna run this by my wife(a vet) and she what she thinks..

thanks

Thanks for the head's up. I have seen emergency care posts, including ones for injection under the skin for extreme dehydration. This is an isotonic sterile solution made exactly for this sort of emergency care.

Diane

I just want to add that this sort of emergency measure should NEVER take the place of a qualified vet's care, and injection rehydration under the skin should never be attempted without guidance and training from a qualified vet.

As this is not an emergency post, I will move it to Health and Hygiene for more exposure.

I guess they changed thier minds.

Hey~ this is cool~

I'm gonna print this out and run it by my vet. Awesome info to have!

Glider Guy~ what was your wife's opinion on this?

I see this as not much different than posting the home made pedialyte recipes.

This is NOT a medicine (such as a pain med or antibiotic).

It is not a suggestion to self medicate your gliders.

It is not a dosage recommendation of a med.

So it doesn't violate any of GC's rules.

Thanks for the post. I think for me, it is just easier to get the ringers from the vet.

Teresa is correct.

A veterinarian can teach you how to give subcutaneous injections to your gliders and very importantly the when to and how much depending on the situation.

As has already been stated - subcutaneous injections are not a cure, they are to give you more time to get your dehydrated glider to a knowledgeable vet to discover and treat the underlying condition.

It is also worth repeating here that Diane said this can be given orally as well.

Honestly, while the information is good, I think its far less expensive and certainly much more simple to just buy a bag of LRS from your vet.

A similar solution was posted a few months ago, but did not include the ppressure canning directions. Anyone looking to do this, I would recommned further researching canning methods as pressure canners can vary in their PSI which is what is being used to sterilize and seal in this instance. Also with yard sales being prevalent this time of year, check your seals on your pressure canners. Gaskets wear out over time (I still have my great-grandfather's canner) and require replacement. It should go without saying, to always use a new Kerr or Ball lid for the jars.

I guess the real value of having a recipe like this is if you live far away from your vet and want to keep some ringer's on hand in case of emergency. The bag of ringer's will not keep as long as a jar of properly sterilized and sealed ringer's solution. (You could transfer your bagged ringers to a ball jar and resterilize, though... that would keep a loooong time.)

This is also incredibly cheap for the volume. True you won't need much, but if you make this up in 4 oz ball jars, you can keep 4 or so on hand and give some to your friends who are fellow glider slaves. Really, this is pennies per jar.

Totally agree about the pressure cooker being in good working order. Don't try this with a hot water bath. It doesn't pressure heat to a high enough temperature. A good canner pressure cooker will reach 120 degrees F internal temperature. 20 minutes at this temperature is the same as autoclave sterilization, and enough to kill even C. botulinum spores.

Diane