Feeder rat 5 weeks old

Hello!

So last night I brought home two little babies from our local Petland. I have been going for the past week and a half just interacting with everyone and of course fell in love.
I believe the oldest one is 5-6 weeks old and the smallest one is between 4-5 weeks. They are both active and enjoy interacting with me but today while having the oldest one out I noticed he made a funny noise with breathing. I went through google and found this video (not my rat at all). [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPdqo0HEtmU[/ame]
He only did it for about 2 seconds and was done so I am assuming it is not as severe as this case. I've called two vets, one an hour away and the other down the street. The one that's about an hour or so is Benefield, with the one back home my parents and I weren't too impressed but they were $47 dollar per rat for a regular check up. The other place closer to me was $140 per rat with fecal and a comprehensive exam.

I was wondering since the bacteria is found naturally could it be that his nose was irritated and now that he's in a clean environment maybe he's just getting use to everything.


He also has these white spots on his back that remind me of botfly eggs on a horse. I'm looking around and it doesn't look like mites but hopefully google images will help me!


Here is a photo of his back

Hard to tell but may be lice nits on the back. Revolution (selamectin) is a one time treatment. Ivermectin is good but ask here for dosing info. Bit sure about the safety of either in such young rats.

Will leave the video/noise question to a shacker with better hearing. Some rats do experience "new home sneezes".

How are they acting otherwise? Active, bright, etc?

temblabamomo said:

Hard to tell but may be lice nits on the back. Revolution (selamectin) is a one time treatment. Ivermectin is good but ask here for dosing info. Bit sure about the safety of either in such young rats.

Will leave the video/noise question to a shacker with better hearing. Some rats do experience "new home sneezes".

How are they acting otherwise? Active, bright, etc?

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I plan on giving them a little bath, I'm going to ask a second opinion from a friend of mine. I'm keeping an eye on the little dots and I don't know how i feel about giving either any wormer/flea and tick medication, especially so young. Hopefully a bath will be good!

He only did it that one time and hasn't since, I would imagine it may be an environment change reaction because they weren't in the best living conditions while at the pet store. I'm cleaning out their bedding and litter every day for now to make sure they aren't smelling too bad.


They are both very active, the littlest one (his testicles are literally just coming in so he must be 4-4.5 weeks) is the most active while my other (possibly 6-7 weeks now that I look at him) is not as active but he's also more shy. Early they both spend about an hour and a half in my sweater, the first 45 minutes they were running up and down my sleeves and jumping on my desk and back on to me and then the rest of the time I had both of them sleeping under my sweater on either shoulder <3

At home we have two older rats so they are my first babies but they seem fairly active and healthy. The only big difference is my oldest is more shy than the youngest but nothing else that i notice is out of the ordinary. Their poop is solid, and its their first real day with me so we're all figuring each other out.

EXTRA: So just after sending this he made that noise again but only for a second. They're both in bed in their little 'sleep house' with fleece and chewed up paper towels. I'm planning on washing everything tomorrow since it's all been pooped and peed on.

The noise sounds like my boy. He did it for very short intervals when he first came home so I brought to him to the vet. They couldn't hear anything in his lungs and he didn't have any pory around his eyes/nose and was not lethargic or poofy so the noise was deemed a non issue.
If your boy only did it this time or rather infrequently makes what I call "guinea pig noise" with no other symptoms then you are probably fine. If he keeps doing this and develops more pory, excessive sneezing, lethargy, puffed fur, etc then go see a vet.

The white bits could be dandruff/dirt or they could be lice eggs.
Revolution should be safe to give them, although I wouldn't count on any other medicines being safe. Lice aren't as big of an issue as mites (in so much as they don't cause such extreme discomfort and scabs as mites... Lice are still awful and dangerous to a rats health), so you might as well watch for a few days and see if it's just dandruff or dirt or lice or whatnot.

Rats absolutely despise baths by the way, because they don't need them. Maybe run them with some olive oil instead (will suffocate some buggies if they are there) and use a nice soft brush on them.

Oh I forgot - you can physically see lice. If you move their fur about and can focus on watching then you can see little brownish reddish bits moving.

Velo said:

The noise sounds like my boy. He did it for very short intervals when he first came home so I brought to him to the vet. They couldn't hear anything in his lungs and he didn't have any pory around his eyes/nose and was not lethargic or poofy so the noise was deemed a non issue.
If your boy only did it this time or rather infrequently makes what I call "guinea pig noise" with no other symptoms then you are probably fine. If he keeps doing this and develops more pory, excessive sneezing, lethargy, puffed fur, etc then go see a vet.

The white bits could be dandruff/dirt or they could be lice eggs.
Revolution should be safe to give them, although I wouldn't count on any other medicines being safe. Lice aren't as big of an issue as mites (in so much as they don't cause such extreme discomfort and scabs as mites... Lice are still awful and dangerous to a rats health), so you might as well watch for a few days and see if it's just dandruff or dirt or lice or whatnot.

Rats absolutely despise baths by the way, because they don't need them. Maybe run them with some olive oil instead (will suffocate some buggies if they are there) and use a nice soft brush on them.

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I was hoping the noise was just him getting adjusted and it seems to be that way at the moment. Right now he's curled up on the back of my neck sleeping <3 they're taking turns now sleeping on me hahahaha

At first I thought it was dandruff but when I looked closer it kind of looked like eggs and so that got me worried. I was checking them earlier for fleas and haven't seen anything but I'll double check and see if I see any lice. None of the other ratties at the petstore seemed to have problems so hopefully these guys wouldn't either.

If its nothing serious I may wait to give them revolution (since we won't be going outside anytime soon with the current weather). But if it seems to be some sort of external parasite I'll look into getting some for them.

Oh I know, we had to give our two adults at home baths (they both smelled like pee and had been outside playing) and they HATED it. I looked up some videos on how to get your ratties use to water and I would like to do it that way but if it seems more serious I may try the olive oil, I'm assuming though I would need to rinse him off?

With washing him in olive oil can you example how I would do that?

With the olive oil, you just put a wee bit on a cotton swab and rub it along them.
It's more like a massage and the olive oil is the massage oil haha. No rinsing as far as I'm aware, you wouldn't use enough oil that rinsing would make a difference.

Also here's another photo of the two of them, the oldest is on the right and the youngest on the left. I still need to give them names! But both are looking relatively healthy to me

Velo said:

With the olive oil, you just put a wee bit on a cotton swab and rub it along them.
It's more like a massage and the olive oil is the massage oil haha. No rinsing as far as I'm aware, you wouldn't use enough oil that rinsing would make a difference.

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Ok, I may try that if I see anything suspicious on him or the little one

This was Zephye when I first got him. When the vet saw him it was definitely lice. He was treated with revo and everything was fine after. c:

Zephye said:

This was Zephye when I first got him. When the vet saw him it was definitely lice. He was treated with revo and everything was fine after. c:

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How old was he? And do you remember the dosage? If not I'll look around and I'll keep an eye to see if I see anything crawling around. He has been itchy but I heard that rats naturally have dryish skin so they scratch frequently.

I dont think they can be treated till they are 5 weeks old. Dont hold me to that but I am remember not beign able to treat our babies till they were that age or older.

hopefloats said:

I dont think they can be treated till they are 5 weeks old. Dont hold me to that but I am remember not beign able to treat our babies till they were that age or older.

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One is about 5-7 the other is 4.5 weeks, I'll wait to see how they do and see if I can put some olive oil on them to at least help with the itchiness

I am nervous about treating so young

ohmyRatties said:

How old was he? And do you remember the dosage? If not I'll look around and I'll keep an eye to see if I see anything crawling around. He has been itchy but I heard that rats naturally have dryish skin so they scratch frequently.

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Zephye was around 11 weeks (I'm guessing), I think maybe 12 weeks when we took him to the vets. It was just a tube of kitten revolution. Since he had a cage mate I was advised to just put one drop between their shoulder blades until the tube was done.

Zephye said:

Zephye was around 11 weeks (I'm guessing), I think maybe 12 weeks when we took him to the vets. It was just a tube of kitten revolution. Since he had a cage mate I was advised to just put one drop between their shoulder blades until the tube was done.

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Thank you! Our scheduled vet visit is around thanksgiving (I know that's a few weeks away). I'm keeping an eye on them and they seem to be getting better, I would like to give them a quick rinse off because they still have the smell of pee on them (unfortunately at the petstore they do not clean the tanks but once a week and they're all in 10 gallons with 5+ rats so their pelleted being is usually like saw dust by the time its cleaned :/ )

But if I notice anything crawling or that the egg like things aren't going away at all I may get some kitty revolution. I just am worried about giving it to them so young

So the little dots are still there but I haven't seen anything crawling on them. I may attempt a quick bath tomorrow but I also don't want to traumatize them either.

We have all become close and I am super happy about that. The only this is Rudy (the one making the noise) is sill randomly making noises here and there. I can sometimes hear him breathing but it's only once a day. I did move them into their new cage Thursday so I wonder if maybe they're just getting use to the newest environment. But I will call the vet Monday to make an appointment when I go home for thanksgiving break

Zephye said:

Zephye was around 11 weeks (I'm guessing), I think maybe 12 weeks when we took him to the vets. It was just a tube of kitten revolution. Since he had a cage mate I was advised to just put one drop between their shoulder blades until the tube was done.

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The dosing for Revolution is one drop between their shoulderblades ONCE. It lasts for four weeks. You could dose them again after a month if necessary, but most times it is not.

Joanne said:

The dosing for Revolution is one drop between their shoulderblades ONCE. It lasts for four weeks. You could dose them again after a month if necessary, but most times it is not.

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We went to a benefield vet and were given revolution that I put on once between their shoulder blade. It seemed to possibly help but I also clipped their nails so they weren't able to break their skin as much.

Also an update on the boys, so we went to a benefield vet that was about an hour away and by that time he had developed a scab on his back. She took a sample but because they don't have the equipment she said the test would take about two weeks.

Well I gave them the revolution she gave me and went on my way. A week later I got a call and Rudy had ringworm. By that time I had developed a circular rash on my chin, shoulder, neck, and cheek. I had my own doctor visit and of course was also diagnosed with ringworm! And one of my roommates also got it but thankfully Plumpkin seems to have missed actually having visible symptoms. So now they're both on ringworm treatment and so is my roommate and myself.

But all and all when we went home I went to see my own vet and she gave them an antibiotic mist or something like that to help boost their immune system. Just in case they were having a flare up that could lead to a URI.


Everyone is doing well and I took them home from college and so they've been without me for a week now. I'll be home Tuesday and I cannot wait to see my boys again! Thank you all for all your help!!

Yeah, ringworm can be pretty contagious. LOL
Glad everyone is healing up OK. It must be hard to be away from your boys!