Owwie stretches - advice?

[minnow]

My darling 2 year and 2 month (or so) old 'Lina has been doing owwie stretches for the past couple evenings. The stretches are intermittent and tend to be only in the evenings. There aren't any odd lumps or bumps in her abdomen that I can feel, and there's no visible discharge anywhere. She's eating and drinking normally even though she's getting skinny. She's still an active little monkey-rat. She was recently taken off Baytril as the URI she was on it for had been asymptomatic for several weeks.

So, other than taking her to the vet when she can squeeze her in, and giving ibuprofen PRN, what should I do here? What is this likely to be? How can I best keep her comfortable through whatever this is?

 

[jorats]

Any particular food she's been getting? Once my Jersy did this with bananas.
Just the other day, my sister's rat did it for only a day. Couldn't figure out what was up and it never returned. I'd keep an eye on her, maybe lay off the veggies a bit for now. Or you could give her some good yogurt to try and settle her stomach.

 

[minnow]

She's been getting pink mush (baby cereal with strawberry Ensure) to try to keep her weight up... I may cut it back to just the Ensure with a little yogurt (or the Critter Be Better that I have for the bunnies) mixed in for a while and see if that helps.

 

[Alicemcmallis]

How has her stool been? If she's got gas or an upset stomach soft stool or diarrhea could point to that. Have you noticed any blood in her urine? That's quite worrisome - it could be any number of things.

 

[minnow]

No diarrhea, no noticeable blood in the urine. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not there, just that it's not visible. I could re-start her on Baytril, but since she's been on it so recently there's a good chance that any UTI bugs could be resistant.

 

[Moon]

Maybe you could put her in a smaller cage on paper towel for just one night to see exactly what her bowels and bladder are doing?

 

[mamarat]

I had a rat do that after the ensure. I thought he might be allergic to it. Good luck with your girl.

 

[minnow]

She didn't have any owwie stretches last night, and on white paper towels her poo is normal and her urine is a bit dilute but no visible traces of blood.

I think I'll switch out the baby cereal for lab block dust or just give her plain Ensure as a supplement for now.

 

[Moon]

Well, I know that I can get pretty wicked gas with certain cereals. Depending on what baby cereal you've been giving, perhaps she's just had too much fiber!!