I just skimmed the replies, so please forgive me if I look like an idiot. But it appears that Lindsay says the concentration is 5 mg/ml. If Willow's dose is .33, then that would be a 5mg/kg dose. This is what our vet would recommend as a starting dose of Baytril.
With more and more rat owners educating themselves, and more and more exotic vets coming on board, we are now in a position to have many different opinions. With that said, I don't want to disagree with anyone....I'll just give my two cents on how we do things based on our vets recommendation.
We always start at a 5mg/kg dose. With doxy, that never goes up. With Batyril, it gives you room to increase, should you not get the results you need in a specific amount of time. I have rarely had to go higher than a 10mg/kg dose over a the course of a rats life. My belief (and our vet's as well) is if you hit them with the higher doses right off the bat, you don't have much more wiggle room in the future, if they relapse.
I also would like to throw in my comments about chronic respiratory/congestion that could very well be the result of a heart condition instead (as well as respiratory problems resulting in heart issues). It is EXTREMELY hard, for even a very experienced exotic vet, to detect heart irregularities in rats. You have to have a very intuned ear because their hearts be so fast. Over the years I've had many rats on antiobiotics that never really seemed to clear up those wet sounds and congestion, no matter what the dose. Our vet Dr. S (who joined our clinic 2 years ago) has a super intuned ear. Heart issues in rats are VERY common and often go undetected. You can throw all the abs you want at it, thinking it's a respiratory problem. :sad3:
I might recommend, that if you don't see in improvement in Willow's condtion, that you have your vet consider trying a short course of Lasix. This can help pull that extra fluid off her lungs and around her heart. The heavy breathing is also a sign of heart issues (as well as respiratory). Enalapril is a very effective heart med. We actually have 7 rats on lasxi and enalapril right now, and they are doing great. 2 of them are now 32 months old!
Something else that really helps in both the respiratory and heart cases, is daily nebulizer treatments. Many are not in a position to get the set up. But we bought ours 7 years ago and it's more than paid for itself. We use a combo of Saline, Acetylsistein (breaks up the mucus) Aminopholline (brochialdialator) and Gentamicin (ab).
Hope that helps some.