Hi all,
Follow on from my previous post about hiding aniseed flavour meds in food.
We've been fighting an upper respiratory infection since march with all five of my girls showing symptoms at some point or other. We sadly lost the eldest to it, looked like her heart gave out after a fortnight battle with symptoms.
Initial symptoms were "crackly" breathing - all nasal, no lung crackles, and some sneezing. After months of this a locum vet suggested it could be myco.
The only two rats who rarely show symptoms are the two who got so ill we thought they weren't going to make it. They now seem completely normal with no symptoms.
From march till last week they were all on doxycycline twice daily with baytril added in as and when. We have done swabs but the lab results were inconclusive.
We are now trying Bisolvon and Sulfatrim as a local breeder (UK) had a look at a video for me and thought it didn't sound like myco and could be pasturella. I would say initial responses to this med switch were positive and the girls began sounding snotty rather than crackly.
Unfortunately the vet didn't have sulfatrim in stock last friday so we were sent home with co-trimoxazole which seemed to help with the symptoms but was aniseed flavour. As a result I have really struggled to feed this to Izzy who is currently the worst affected. Even syringing it has caused distress and spitting out what she can.
Hoping for Sulfatrim to arrive today so i can get it in her, but was wondering if anyone has any other advice for med combos? She's started coughing/trying to clear a blockage this morning for the first time so I'm worried.
Follow on from my previous post about hiding aniseed flavour meds in food.
We've been fighting an upper respiratory infection since march with all five of my girls showing symptoms at some point or other. We sadly lost the eldest to it, looked like her heart gave out after a fortnight battle with symptoms.
Initial symptoms were "crackly" breathing - all nasal, no lung crackles, and some sneezing. After months of this a locum vet suggested it could be myco.
The only two rats who rarely show symptoms are the two who got so ill we thought they weren't going to make it. They now seem completely normal with no symptoms.
From march till last week they were all on doxycycline twice daily with baytril added in as and when. We have done swabs but the lab results were inconclusive.
We are now trying Bisolvon and Sulfatrim as a local breeder (UK) had a look at a video for me and thought it didn't sound like myco and could be pasturella. I would say initial responses to this med switch were positive and the girls began sounding snotty rather than crackly.
Unfortunately the vet didn't have sulfatrim in stock last friday so we were sent home with co-trimoxazole which seemed to help with the symptoms but was aniseed flavour. As a result I have really struggled to feed this to Izzy who is currently the worst affected. Even syringing it has caused distress and spitting out what she can.
Hoping for Sulfatrim to arrive today so i can get it in her, but was wondering if anyone has any other advice for med combos? She's started coughing/trying to clear a blockage this morning for the first time so I'm worried.
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. You can lose rats suddenly, orthey may just be sneezy for a week or 2. All symptomatic rats need to be treated for at least a month. And rats that were very sick initially may be compromised the rest of their lives. These viruses do horrible things to our babies 