My Rat Is Sick - Help?

[EmberXtelle]

Hello! Long time no see here. My rat is a little over 1 year, but lately she’s been acting weird. She’s breathing really heavily / fast - sometimes making squeaking noises in sync with the breathing. She usually runs around when I have her out of the cage but she wants to crawl up to my chest and just lay down.

No vet here wants to see or work on rats, and I don’t know what to do antibiotic wise as I believe it’s a URI. Any suggestions as to what I should do to help?

 

[SQ]

If she got ill very fast then it may be a secondary infection and she may need clavamox
If it came on more slowly then she may need baytril, baytril + clavamox, baytril + doxy, or baytril + azithromycin (10 mg/Ib) orally, twice a day .... if the meds help then she would stay on them for about 6 weeks, if they didn't start to help within a few days then a different combo would be tried
ratguide.com has info about the dosage to give rats for the different meds

I honestly do not know what you can do if you can not take her to a vet
Having access to a good vet is essential when owning rats

A tiny piece of dark chocolate is sometimes used to try to keep the airway open until you can get the rat to a vet
and if the air is dry and depending on what is wrong, increasing the humidity might help her breath easier until she can get to a vet - but increasing humidity or using steam can make a rat much worse if they have fluid building up in their lungs because it can increase the fluid in their lungs and create an emergency situation.
Neither these will make her better, people sometimes use them when desperate to try to keep their rat alive until they can get to a vet.

 

[lilspaz68]

Can you post a video of your little girl and we can determine the severity of her respiratory infection? Where are you located? Canada? US?

 

[jorats]

I would keep calling around at vets, there might be one who is willing to at least give you antibiotics.