Clover, is gone.

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Melissa's ZOO

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 4, 2007
Messages
2,199
Location
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
My heart, my Clover, my beautiful black berk. She is at that 2 year mark.

I am pretty sure she either had a stroke or she has a rapid growing PT. Since tuesday (I believe) she stopped going up top to sleep with her cage mates, sleeping alone at the bottom of the cage, she wouldnt want to come out for play time unless I got her out of the cage. This morning she was pretty much out of it, puffed up and would barely crawl to get to where she needs to go. This evening she had mass amounts of porphorin on her eyes and nose and she had laid in her urine. so I took a warm rag and cleaned her up. She tries to eat but gets really weak after a few seconds and just lays there starring.

Of course it is a holiday weekend and no vets are open and there are no ER that treat rats. I have Baytril, but she really does not want to eat it.

I am at a loss, I told her that if she was ready to leave me she could and I would understand. I will be taking her first thing Monday to the vet and I will go from there.

Any words of wisdom?
 
It could honestly be any number of things. Illnesses don't always present themselves as loud obnoxious noises and that. Her symptoms really don't sound like a stroke, since I believe they recover some fairly quickly. At the very least, she would be slowly improving, not worsening. As for PT, have you noticed any clubbing of her feet? Stumbling? Circling, tilting..?

Keep her hydrated, that's the most important. You can use the hydrating formula, and just syringe it to her. If she'll lick at the syringe, it'll help. If she won't drink from the syringe, it's much more difficult since just forcing it can cause major aspiration.

Homemade rehydrating formula: 10 oz warm water, 1 tsp sugar, 1/3 tsp salt. Mix well, refrigerate extra, warm up to feed.

You can also use a syringe to feed her ensure. It'll help get her the nutrients she needs since she's not really eating. You need to help her keep her energy up so she can try and fight whatever this is.

If any of that perks her up, which it should, you can try and give her the Baytril. Do you have any Doxy or anything on hand? A more aggressive treatment would probably benefit her greatly. If you make your own suspensions, like from the 10% Baytril or from pills, you can make it a much higher concentration so that it's a smaller amt to get into her.
 
First she sounded like she was aging, now she sounds just ill. I would do everything java says but I would definitely start her on the baytril.

I don't see any symptoms of PT or stroke in your description.
 
Oops! Sorry, I read that as you had already started her on the Baytril, but she wasn't taking it well. Which is why I suggested changing the concentration so you had less to get into her.. The "perking up" would hopefully get her to take the full amt of what you already had on hand if you weren't able to get a higher concentration med.

If you haven't already started it, please go ahead and start.
 
If it's a PT, it's very fast and you are already near the end... It's really a difficult time and of course it has to be the weekend.
Stay strong for your little Clover.
 
she is still here and i am holding her as i type. her whole body seems to lean to the left when i put her down and she will eat her baby food but gets very weak and gives up. getting baytril down has been very difficult no clubbing of her hands. but i figure the leaning was a sign. i have baytril 10% liquid and doxy 100 mg capsules but it tastes awful and she refuses it. she is still pretty hydrated, i have not seen her drink but i give her the skin pull test evertime i see her and it bounces back as it should. i will make the hydro solution and try to get that down her. i just have my fingers crossed she makes it till monday.
 
PT and an inner ear infection have the same symptoms, and the treatments are the same.

What do you mix your abs with?
 
Update: I mix the abs with baby food (peach) 1 ml of Baytril with 5 ml of food to make a .5ml dose. I am going to go get some ensure to use which maybe a little more tasty to her.

Great news she is doing better, I had to force the meds down her all day yesterday. But this morning she eagerly ate it and was excited to get to the food bowl to eat with the other girls. She is much stronger grooming again and walking. She is still weak so she gets tired quickly, but she no longer looks as if she is completey miserable. Her coat is still puffed up and her eyes and nose are junked up but I am cleaning her with a warm rag to keep her clean and happy. I am taking her on Monday to see about getting some prednisone or some other steroid to see if I can't get her healed faster.

Thanks to you guys for the encouragement that it may be a cureable illness and to not give up so fast. No matter what I was trying to get the abs in her to at least try and heal her.
 
I spoke to soon, she seems to not be so well tonight, she ate her baytril and ate some additonal baby food. But her sides are sunk in and it is either from pain or she has just lost a few grams in the past 4 days, not sure which. She also had what looked to me like puss or mucus coming from her urethra or her vaginal area, it did not smell and i soaked it off with a warm rag. So I really don't have a clue what is wrong with and could be a number of things. We are still going to the vet in the morning so lets hope he can pin point a problem and get her the proper meds.
 
If she had pus coming from her urethra, it could be a UTI. Strong antibiotics, such as the Baytril/Doxy you've got her on, will help that. She wouldn't need prednisone, or any other steroid, for that. You said she was leaning some, which could be a sign of an inner ear infection. It doesn't sound too much like that anymore. She may have just been having problems because of internal pain from the possible UTI.

I'm not sure I understand your dosages, though. You're using 10% Baytril, correct? So, at 100mg/ml of Baytril, into 5mls of Baby food, you're mixing up a suspension of 20mg/ml. That's "weaker" than most of the suspensions vet's sell. Also, depending on how much Clover weighs, a 300g rat should be getting between .08cc-.15cc twice a day. For serious infections, you usually want to give them the high end dosage.

If you mix less of the baby food [maybe try something with a stronger flavor to mask the baytril] you can mix up a suspension that's much more concentrated. It's infinitely easier to get .03cc of a bad tasting medication into a sick rat than it is to get .15cc of a tastier version into a sick rat.

Good luck at the vet's, and I hope everything turns out okay!
 
So went to the vet first thing this morning.

First off she was so much better this morning she was actually walking climbing in and out of the litter box and fighting to get to the food this morning.

Last night I mixed in 100 mg of Doxy with 1.5 ml of Baytril with 5 ml of peach to make 10 doses. According to the Rat Health book the dose is 10 mg doxy per pound and .1 ml of Baytril (10%). I put it into some baby cereal and she ate it right up this morning. I figured I should up the dose of Baytril which I did last night and it obviously helped. If 1cc is the same as 1ml then I think I have it right?

But I took her to the vet and he believes it was a UTI and that she was just in quite a bit of pain and that was why she was so weak. He said that the current meds I have her on is perfect and to keep giving her the meds for at least 3 weeks. Keep her well hydrated as it will help to flush out her kidneys and bladder and keep her living area as clean as possible.
 

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