When your rats get sick

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hopefloats

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Oct 15, 2010
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Last month I was hit with something rather unpleasant. I can and do chalk up that I did not lose anyone to my fast reactions. I have tons of speculation as to what or how but I am not 100% sure. I considered testing but I really dont want to put them through it. I can say that it hit me within 5 days and I had only a few rats that didnt sound like a quacking duck. It started with Mally and Lenny, both one in each of my groups were sick. They were both a bit sneezy the week before and making a bit of cough sound over the weekend, I started them on baytril, but still we went back vet. Mally, her lungs sounded fine so he suggested I start her on both meds. Doxy and baytril. I prefer to follow up even though I generally have the meds here. I would rather someone listen to her lungs to see how they sound. That is not the point though. The point is what do you do when your rats are starting to become sick.

I get some that sneeze on occasion. I watch at that point. When I start to hear machine gun sneezes. They get meds. Some you will hear sound wet, that is another sign of a problem. Any lung noise at all, which you can hear by rattie phoning your rat. Stick their lungs up to your ear and listen. Do both sides. you should hear a heart beat or smooth breathing, mine tend to breath faster when i do it, but it sounds free flowing. Clicks, crackles, slight wheezes are indications of bad things that are brewing.

I have had my share of pneumonia and it is the worst.

If you find your rat struggling to breath, You need to act fast. They need meds and a combo. Some use baytril and Doxy, or Baytril and Zithro. I prefer to use the doxy and baytril combo because well my vet wont give me zithro. I also have a nebulizer. A pediatrics one, and they get medicine from that twice a day. We have been giving amiglyde and saline. I have noticed it helped, but lucy had a swollen face from it, the first time she was on it. This time Bindi had a huge lump appear in her neck, but not sure if it was from that or the doxy, which did it to her before on her nipple.
[BBvideo 425,350:245xbmz4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1fFJn7NSUw[/BBvideo:245xbmz4]

you can see at the end, she is hanging her head over the edge. Which is why she has that orange thing in the cat carrier, in which she lived in for a week. They need something to hang off of it helps them breath. I chose the cat carrier because my girl was in such a panic in the cage, she was trying to crawl through the bars of the FN. In the cat carrier she was fine. I could leave it on my desk and she could lay how she wanted to and with the door open, she did not have as many panic attacks.

If you do not put liquids in them, they will dehydrate. That makes recovering not an option once that happens. Unless you change it. You have to help them rehydrate. I try to feed them ensure by which ever means that is necessary. Sometimes they will take it from a syringe only, or a spoon only, some have only taken from a metal spoon and will turn up their noses to a plastic one. I have found that with a few of my rats. I suggest trying whatever method you can.
[BBvideo 425,350:245xbmz4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqXXt02WH2Q[/BBvideo:245xbmz4]

I pinch test my rats often when they are sick. Skins stays together, you have a dehydrated rattie on your hands. I use a typical syringe, no needle :) and I force the water mixture into them slowly. I only put about .1 ML at a time. I slowly work into larger amounts. Mally was so dehydrated she had no energy for anything. She was getting a dull look to her coat. I gave her this amount about every 20 minutes for a few hours. I slowly moved up to a bigger dose. After a few hours and by the next morning she was more than willing to take the water from the syringe. By this time, instead of sugar, I put a dab of Strawberry nesquick in the syringe. But we still forced her to drink it mostly.

5 days into Pneumonia, she was bad. But you can see she is grooming a bit. You want that and sneezes. I have learned to watch for sneezes. I literally get super excited when I hear them sneezing because I know it is moving.

I was considering having her pts because I couldn't take seeing her suffer and I did not see an improvement at all.
[BBvideo 425,350:245xbmz4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EynPOFpWx2U[/BBvideo:245xbmz4]

I steam my very sick rats often. If they are really sick, I hold them wrapped in a cloth over a pan of steaming water. I don't allow it to boil completely I fear that will be to hot for them, I do however let the bubbles start to show, then it is ready for steaming them. When they start to feel better, I put them in a cat carrier, cover it with a towel, and stick the pan about 6 inches away from the closed door. I watch them the entire time. Shelagh helped me really learn what to look for with mally, before I just winged it. You can tell when it gets worse for them, they panic they struggle to breath and it freaks you out. Stop steaming them. Mally would start to sneeze within a few seconds which is what you want to happen.

I also hold them in my arms, use my index finger to gently tap their sides by where their lungs are, they will start sneezing when you do it. My oldest daughter had pneumonia a lot for the first few years of her life. They would make me do that after her breathing treatments. I have seen it help with the rats since they start to sneeze after.

Mally and I have a love/hate relationship. I love her, she hates me :) She is still having a few noises in her lungs, she is also the last of the sneezy rats. I am unsure if she may have scarring or if she is still battling either way I have her as a vicious rat phone every few hours every day. Scary since she bites hard. I have been medicating all of my rats since the first sign that something wasn't right. Some days I get up at 4am to make sure I have enough time to medicate them before I have to work at 6am. I will be stopping the medication on most of my rats on the 14th. One month after we started. Some of them such as Lucy, Eleanor, Mally and Ludo will probably get the meds for a bit longer. Those are my weakest ones for sickness so they will get a bit longer just to make sure. Everyone else is doing grand, all the noisy/crackling/and sneezing is gone for most.

I am not saying every rat can be saved from this. I have fought it 5 times now with my rats and I haven't lost one to it. It is a lot of work when one is so deathly ill. It is also a lot of work when you have a lot of rats, another thing to consider before adding more to your group. I dont have any problems with doing it physically or financially I can tell you I was emotionally spent after the first two weeks. Another down fall of having many rats. Rats are amazing. I love my big groups and I love each one of the rats. It is extremely difficult when they are sick. At that point it is them you have to focus on, when you are tired, crabby and every thing else.

If you have other tricks for pneumonia feel free to post it. If you have negative comments about any of it, dont waste your time.
 
Thanks eagle lol but so many rats with pneumonia it seemed like a deatiled thread was needed. You guys help me mentally through it all everytime a problems comes up. I know how scary it is to not know what to do for them hopefully this can help others dealing with it for the first time.
 
You walked through hell and survived...we know. :sad3: You fought for your babies very hard, and they came through for you.. So glad to hear its almost over for all of you and that Mally is back to her usual not so nice self. :giggle: . Maybe you'll be able to change your gchat status soon? :cheeky:
 
Oh my :(. I'm glad your quick and aggressive treatment has helped. For the most part that is how I have dealt with pneumonia as well (I basically just nebulize some different drugs). I think it is great to have all this information in one place, thanks for making this thread.
 
Dazzle87 said:
Oh my :(. I'm glad your quick and aggressive treatment has helped. For the most part that is how I have dealt with pneumonia as well (I basically just nebulize some different drugs). I think it is great to have all this information in one place, thanks for making this thread.

I thought it was you who nebulized as well. What meds do you use?

In chat there has been a few who had pneumonia, you could tell they were at a loss of what to do. I just figured since I had videos I would make a thread. It is hard to try to explain in chat on a full day, I just hoped this would be easier to access.
 
I've nebulized albuterol and gentamycin(sp). I also have done baytril, which I've heard some bad things about on here, but found that to be very effective as well, especially to start with. I think that gentamycin is similar to the amiglade(sp) that you use.

And yes, now you can link people to this. There is so much to it that would be a hard thing to help with in chat.
 
Especially when you tell them to do something then they jump off and go do it before you finish explaining....
 
Lucy august 25
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August 29th
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August 31
[BBvideo 425,350:35zfqwm2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9G9L8Jt-5Q[/BBvideo:35zfqwm2]
 
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