New Rat Sneezing Often.. allergies? Or infection?

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BumbleBee

New Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2020
Messages
2
Location
Aurora, CO
Hi! After two years of not own rats, I finally got a pair of girls! They are wonderful!
However, one of them has started sneezing a lot! I got them both about a week and a half ago, they are littermates.
The second one is just fine though.

She's just sneezing. She's eating fine, drinking great, and seems to still have a good amount of energy and weight. I do have pinewood bedding at the bottom of the cage they have, but I'm not sure if that is it.

Should I take her to the vet?
I am generally an anxious person, and small rodents are difficult to tell when they are genuinely sick or not. I think getting advice from someone who isn't emotionally invested will be helpful!

Thanks!
 
Well, I adopted a couple of sniffly rats and I took them both to ER to make sure. They were both fine. Also, new rats can develop the 'new home sniffles.'

You should get rid of the pine. No pine.

Use newspaper or paper towel or polar fleece. Rats have super sensitive resp systems and cannot be on pine.

I use paper towel and fleece. I change the paper towel and toilet paper EVERY day and the fleece is checked every day. If it has any urine smell it gets changed for fresh fleece.

You should get into this routine of cleaning and it will save you a TON of problem.

Watch for lack of eating and drinking, piloerection (fuzzed up fur), lethargy... that's when you gotta go to the ER vet.

You should just take new ones to the vet if you can for a check up, just make the appointment, and watch your sneezing rat carefully for the signs above and get rid of that pine.
 
Thank you! I got rid of the Pine and replaced it with shredded paper yesterday!

I'm going to get them a check up tomorrow, just in case. I would rather get them looked at regardless just in case.
 
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