Booster

Victoria has picked this up for me at her vet's office, it's called boost ..just wondering if anyone has aad any experience with it?

http://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com/Booster/products/50/

 

[temblabamomo]

My vet has talked me into buying several HealX supplements. Mostly I've only found it to be a waste of money. The variety we've had was supposed to be pomegranate flavoured, but it tasted horrid and there's really no hiding it in food or treats. I've stopped letting my vet try to sell me this. The admit up front that they don't know that it will do anything for rats, but it's the only thing they can think to try. Idk, personally I wouldn't buy it ever again.

 

[victoria]

Did you try the Booster? I have found that it does a lot for their coat and skin, and maybe gives a small boost to antibiotics. This stuff doesn't taste particularly good, but if I mix it with plain oatmeal or any other soft food they gobble it up. My vet told me there was peer reviewed research on rat colonies that seemed to indicate stronger immune systems.

The other Healx product I really like (more than Booster) is the Soother Plus. I used it with a rat with bumblefoot and while she used to HATE me putting Polysporin on and would lick it off immediately, she actually liked the Soother Plus and it helped her foot heal somewhat, at least to the point were she wasn't having huge bleeds when she was exploring at playtime. I do think Blu Kote may have worked better, but my vets don't even know what it is and at the time I had just moved and did not yet have a relationship with them or know enough about Blu Kote that I could have persuaded them to look into it.

I know Unepuce also uses Booster... maybe she will find the thread and add her experience with it.

 

[jorats]

We tried something similar for our rats and a couple of them had not a good reaction to it. The oils were too high, too rich for some.

 

I'll try it, and see how it works with my guys. I do remember unepuce mentioning it before (she said she found it worked great).
I will most likely do the Enchincia method of one week on, two weeks off.

 

[temblabamomo]

I will have to check when I am home to see exactly what type we were given. There was one kind that you had to sit in hot water to heat it back to liquid form, as Jo said, the oils are a bit high and rich for some. I had such trouble getting my kids to take it, no matter what I mixed it in they seemed to detect it. One of my old boys was willing to take it off my finger, but he only tolerated limited doses; I don't know if he found it too rich or what.

There was another type, I think the one for birds, that we were given. It did not have to be heated, but despite the flavoring it still tasted kind of awful.

My vet (who isn't the best tbh) said they did not know if it would help or not, but it was all they could think to do for my little guy with the chronic resp issues, aside from traditional antibiotics. Perhaps I could have been more diligent in my attempts to get everyone to take this stuff, but given the cost and all the kids' general intolerance of it, we kind of gave up on it. If I want to try having them on immune boosters in the future, I'll probably do the echinacea thing, as they seem a lot more willing to have that.

 

[victoria]

I will have to check when I am home to see exactly what type we were given. There was one kind that you had to sit in hot water to heat it back to liquid form, as Jo said, the oils are a bit high and rich for some. I had such trouble getting my kids to take it, no matter what I mixed it in they seemed to detect it. One of my old boys was willing to take it off my finger, but he only tolerated limited doses; I don't know if he found it too rich or what.

There was another type, I think the one for birds, that we were given. It did not have to be heated, but despite the flavoring it still tasted kind of awful.

My vet (who isn't the best tbh) said they did not know if it would help or not, but it was all they could think to do for my little guy with the chronic resp issues, aside from traditional antibiotics. Perhaps I could have been more diligent in my attempts to get everyone to take this stuff, but given the cost and all the kids' general intolerance of it, we kind of gave up on it. If I want to try having them on immune boosters in the future, I'll probably do the echinacea thing, as they seem a lot more willing to have that.

Booster is the one you have to put in hot water to get it to a liquid form, the other stuff I think is Sunshine Factor, and I haven't tried that. My guys didn't appreciate the stuff when I tried to give it to them with the use of a syringe but they seem to have no problems when I mix it with food. I think I have even used it to coat steamed broccoli and it was a hit. The daily dosage (I'm unfortunately not diligent enough to give it daily but I am trying to give it at least 3x per week and my guys are looking better since I have) is quite small, 1 ml is enough for the entire cage. I've done the Echinacea thing too, though I didn't notice any change with it.

 

[jorats]

Ours was the kind you had to sit in hot water as well to bring back to liquid form.

 

[temblabamomo]

I could swear the sunshine factor was the kind you had to melt. Idk. I still have 2 different kinds. The last few weeks have been so hectic with the holidays and having so much fam in town. Maybe once things settle a bit and I have time I'll give these things another try. The last time I used them seems like eons ago, when I didn't know much at all about how to med a rat, or hide meds in food. For what I had to pay for it, it seems like giving it another try could be worth my while.

 

[Unepuce]

I am completely sold to Booster!

I got my Mac from my vet, and from day 1 when I first visited him, and could hear he had breathing issues, eventhough my vet couldn't hear anything from his lungs. I brought him home anyway and things would get worst, then better, then worst, then better again, but it didn't seem to bother him, so I stopped worrying. Then one of my vets suggested using Booster on him and started mentionning what it was supposed to do (boost immune system, more energy, increase appetite, improve coat, etc). As my Picolo was growing older (now going on his (guess) 34th month), his coat was getting very thin and rough, he always looked sleepy, he was losing lots of weight, so I asked whether I could put him on it too.

I still can't believe how much they both improved! Mac hasn't made a sound ever since (but is turning into a big pancake... :giggle and Picolo - he's got a whole new life. His coat is still thin, but not as much as before, and it is now smooth and shiny, he's moving around a lot more (still tries to make it to the litter for his big needs :heart: ) and his appetite did increase, eventhough he keeps losing weight at an alarming speed (we confirmed 3 tumours on Dec 20 - the day I had to put my jolie Penny to sleep...). I didn't know whether he could still eat blocks, so I started feeding him ground blocks in soya milk, but I caught him this morning eating a block :joy:

I am telling you, I will always have a bottle of Booster around from now on!

 

[temblabamomo]

That's encouraging news. I am guessing you give it pretty consistently? My downfall has always been boys who don't like the taste of the healx or sunshine factor, some days I could trick them, other days they'd smell/taste it in whatever I'd hidden it in, so they might get it sometimes, but it wouldn't be everyday. I found out the other night that my currently lot actually really goes for the sunshine factor, so I'm going to try it for a while, see if I notice any changes.

 

[Unepuce]

I do give it daily. I do not use the full dose - the vet (Dr Brieger) originally calculated over 0.3 cc for Mac :shock: but after talking to my vet (Dr Bealieu), I brought it down to 0.05 for both of them and the wonders started. As Picolo did take a downturn at some point, I highered the dosage to 0.10 cc and everyone is happy.

I use the Victoria mix (Apple sauce and peanut butter) and it works wonders - Picolo actually gets all of his meds in at once in the mix.

 

I do give it daily. I do not use the full dose - the vet (Dr Brieger) originally calculated over 0.3 cc for Mac :shock: but after talking to my vet (Dr Bealieu), I brought it down to 0.05 for both of them and the wonders started. As Picolo did take a downturn at some point, I highered the dosage to 0.10 cc and everyone is happy.

I use the Victoria mix (Apple sauce and peanut butter) and it works wonders - Picolo actually gets all of his meds in at once in the mix.

I hope it works for me

Could you help me with the doseages for my crew? I don't want to give the full dose either, but I do want to give it daily.

Here are the weights:

Momma – 300 (26 months?)
Bella – 330 (19 months)
Hannah -500 (23 months?)
Eve – 310 ( ??? months - I have only had her for 4 months – looks to be older – 24 months?)
Juno – 250 (10 weeks)
Oscar – 700 (20 months)
Teddy – 660 (20 months)
Toby – 600 (20 months)
Scamp – 510 ( 12 months)

 

Got the booster today!

The rats all had mixed opinions of it. I gave it in the Victoria mixture (unsweetend apple sauce, organic PB and a little bit of olive oil) ..Scamp went retarded for it (grabed the spoon like he has never seen food before) ..Oscar tried it and backed away like he was scared ..but came back for more after he seen scamp eat it. Teddy made weid faces and ran off ..came back after for more ..Momma ate it slowly ..Hannah, Bella and Toby were iffy but ate a bit ..Juno and Eve loved it!

 

[jorats]

Did you continue to give it to them? Or only did it for a bit of time, did you see any difference? Sometimes by stopping and starting again, it will give another boost.

 

[jorats]

Never mind, you answered my question in the other post. I didn't want to continue to hijack that thread.

 

Never mind, you answered my question in the other post. I didn't want to continue to hijack that thread.

Hijack away, it helps me learn things as well!

 

[temblabamomo]

Any creative rat chefs out there who have ever tried making, er, booster balls? Lol, like medicine balls. I was just wondering if anyone ever tried mixing up a batch of standard medicine ball ingredients and adding booster instead of meds. I wasn't sure if refrigerating booster would make it less effective, or if some recipe could be done that didn't require refrigeration or what. Measuring out daily doses for five boys vs handing everyone a booster ball...just seems the latter would be easier. Especially for folks with lots and lots of rats.

Any thoughts?

 

I'm not sure if Booster can be put in the fridge and still bne normal, since you need to submiss it in hot water. I just make baby cereal and add a bit of booster to it every night.

 

[temblabamomo]

I'm not sure if Booster can be put in the fridge and still bne normal, since you need to submiss it in hot water. I just make baby cereal and add a bit of booster to it every night.

I thought the hot water thing was just to liquify it enough so that it could be measured out. I didn't think the heating process "activated" it, or that it was only effective once heated and liquified. I wouldn't know if refrigerating a mixture containing Healx would render it ineffective or not. On a very hectic day, it would be cool to just be able to hand out a booster treat.

I also thought well heck, if it was possible to make it in a treat form, the company would already sell something like that. But I guess if dosage varies by weight and all pet owners don't have scales, that would be kind of hard to market because you'd have to have treats available containing different dosages and not all people would know which one was right for their pet. Idk.