Mari can't keep weight on

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UhHuhHer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2013
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667
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Mariel is about five months old and hairless. She's very active and she's usually a very healthy girl. Except every few weeks, she loses weight very quickly. Usually, I can up her portions a little and it helps, but sometimes it keeps dropping. Twice, we've had nights where she was nearly skeletal, pale, cold, and lethargic. I had to wrap her in a blanket and get her body temperature up and then feed her baby food and lab blocks (and sometimes fruit) until she starts to get back to normal. It's scary. And after both episodes, my vet gave her a clean bill of health. She suggested I feed her more than the others and maybe try some different things.

This week I noticed her weight was dropping again and got proactive. I've made the rats pasta and rice, I've given them nuts and cheerios. I've given Mari baby food and some dried fruits just to herself. I'm still having trouble getting her body temperature up and she's losing weight again. I don't know what to do. And the cold has to be something more serious than just the house being too chilly. The basement stays at around 70(f), she has two hidey houses and a fluffy hammock, and three rats with fur that she snuggles with daily.
 
Anytime I hear about weight fluctuating rapidly I automatically think of pituitary tumours. The other possibility is a metabolic disorder. Is she eating a lot but still losing?
 
Sometimes. Like I said, for a week or two at a time she'll eat and gain or stay at the same weight. But then suddenly she'll eat normally and lose weight rapidly. But, yes. Generally she is eating a good amount and it doesn't always help.
 
I would feed her healthy fats like avocado, olive oil, coconut oil. But try and keep her protein low. Hopefully it's not her kidneys.
 
Okay. I have olive oil and I can get some avocados tonight. She loves trying new things, so she'll be really cooperative.

This morning when I went to check on her, she was warm and had a little belly again. It was a huge relief, but I'm not going to be able to relax until I get some answers and a way to move forward for her. This is really one of the first two heart rats I've had in a long time. She means so much to me and I'm scared I'm going to lose her young.

I honestly hadn't thought about it being either a tumor or a kidney problem, but I've been too panicked about it to think too clearly about it. I'll have that in mind to ask about when I take her back to our vet. Maybe we can get closer to finding answers if I have a way to start. Any other things I should make sure to bring up with her?
 
I just re read the your first post and realize she's very young. At that age, I'd be thinking respiratory distress. PT and even kidneys is not something we think about at such a young age. But you said your vet has given her a clean bill of health every time. My mom did have a hairless girl who was pretty skinny all her life and she lived a long time. Some rats are just skinnier than others. Any chance we can get a picture of her?
 
She is a very petite girl. She's fairly lean normally with a tiny belly. But the drops in weight she has are such that her ribs and spine become super visible. And she'll become freezing cold and lethargic along with the drops in weight. Before the cold and lethargy started, I just thought her fluctuating weight was something normal that I just didn't notice when my other rats did it because of their hair.

This is her at a normal weight. She looks a little tubbier when she's hunched up like this.

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I'm trying to find the picture I took when she was super thin and I can't right now, but it's somewhere on my hard drive.
 
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Okay. Because she's hunched, it's hard to see how thin she was in these. But you can tell how pale she is. The night it was taken, she was ice cold and could barely keep her eyes open. You can sort of see her spine, but the worse part was how sunken in her stomach was. I did not pick her up to get a good picture of that. At this point, she was warm enough that we had moved onto trying to feed her.

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Yes, I can see what you mean and why you are worried, especially at her age. If she was old like over 2 years old, I'd say she looks normal. The spontaneous drop in weight is alarming. Let us know what your vet might think it is.
 
I will. I'm making her another appointment with a different vet. My cat's vet used to work with him and it sounds like he may have more experience with rats than my current exotics vet. Hopefully, he'll have some clue what's going on with her. And I'll update you later this week after we see him.

I gave her some avocado last night and a little bit of boiled egg with her dinner. Her body temp and weight is still good for now. And I turned the temperature in the house up a little for her.
 
Oh dear yes she looks very unwell in that picture. Very thin and likely dehydrated too. You are a good rat mommy to keep on top of it watching her so closely and seeing a vet.
 
Okay. So, this was a new vet and so far I like him. And the trip was close to home and not as big a hit to my Care Credit card. So that's good news.

I brought Mari in a carrier with her cagemate Tamsin, for comfort, and I had my boy Maisy in a separate carrier because he started worrying me a couple nights ago, too. So, I'll go over Mari first since this thread was about her, and then I'll share what I learned about Maisy after, for anyone interested. Honestly, though, I left feeling better about Mari, but worse about my little boy who I thought had a simple problem.

The things he wants to look at first are parasites and metabolic issues. She seemed really healthy to him, but he did take note of what I told him about how seriously her coloring fluctuates and he also wants to consider anemia when we get around to blood work. First, though, he wants a stool sample. So, I'm gonna get that in this week and if we rule out parasites, we're gonna do some blood work and move on to our next set of possible issues. In the meantime, he approved the fattier diet I've been keeping her on. So we'll keep that up and I'll feed her some of her dinner individually to monitor her eating and make sure the other rats in the cage aren't making it worse by stealing food from her.

Basically, he told me what I kind of already knew. A naked rat could have a variety of health problems passed down to her and it's just going to be a matter of being persistent in keeping her as healthy as possible while we narrow down our options. This could still be a long road, but I feel confident with this vet. I think we're gonna figure this out.

Maisy does not have mites, which makes it less likely that Mari has mites, so he's not considering that as an exacerbating factor in her condition for right now. He doubted with how badly Maisy has bitten his legs and tail up that they wouldn't have picked up a single mite on the skin scrapes they did of him. That's good for Mari, because that's something else we can rule out, but it's scary for Maisy. We have even fewer answers now as to why he's hurting himself so badly. His head tilt has also worsened, so we're treating it first like he has a deep inner ear infection that was missed by his previous vet. But the other thing he wants me to consider is the possibility that he has neurological damage and that both the worsening tilt and the stress that's causing him to hurt himself are symptoms of that. He gave me antibiotics and steroids and we're gonna hope the issue is in his ear and not his brain.

Both of these kiddos are just babies. I've never had rats this young and I was really hoping this group would have long, healthy lives. And it's my 5 and 6 month olds that I'm having to take in to get checked for some serious and long-running issues. I feel good about this vet and glad that he's so optimistic about baby Mari, but I've been crying since I got back to work. This was just a really heavy visit.
 
It's a good start for Mari. As for Maisy, lets hope the meds will clear him up completely. As for not seeing mites... in fact, rat mites almost always comes up negative on a scraping. But I agree with your vet that it's most likely self barbering due to stress.
 
It's a good start for Mari. As for Maisy, lets hope the meds will clear him up completely. As for not seeing mites... in fact, rat mites almost always comes up negative on a scraping. But I agree with your vet that it's most likely self barbering due to stress.

I didn't know that. I've only had a mite problem once and they were visible, so we didn't need to do the scrape. I'm gonna go over all the other rats tonight and do another check for scabs, but I'm pretty sure Maisy is the only one with them. So I'm also leaning towards them not having mites.

It is a good start for Mari. I'm excited to have a plan now. The other vet was just counting on a "wait and see" approach. And I'm glad he's taking both of their issues seriously and that Maisy is on meds now as well.
 
If you saw the buggies before, then they were lice. Mites can not be seen with the naked eye. They are far too small. That's why when I see scabs, I just treat them. And it's very normal for only one rat to have scabs... it just means they have a lower immune system, and are affected worse by the mites.
 
If you saw the buggies before, then they were lice. Mites can not be seen with the naked eye. They are far too small. That's why when I see scabs, I just treat them. And it's very normal for only one rat to have scabs... it just means they have a lower immune system, and are affected worse by the mites.

Oh. Okay. That would make more sense then.
 
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