walkinggal
Member
For those who don't know my back story. I adopted two young females (somewhere b/w 6-8 weeks old). They both delivered surprise pregnancies within a couple weeks of bringing them home. We had separated out the litters and both litters seemed to be doing well except for one failure to thrive pup that is still struggling (we're supplementing now as well).
Anyway, today, 4 pups out of the older litter (now 21 days old) have all got porphyrin discharge around the left eye. As a retired Vet Tech I've seen my share of rat illnesses over the years and know that porphyrin discharge can mean something as simple as stress to all the scary respiratory illnesses. I'm not used to raising babies though so I'm a little more worried than usual. And I'm rusty on all my rat health stuff since it's been years since I've had to look at it.
Some notes:
1. I had yesterday's news in the litterbox that Mom uses diligently. However, yesterday the pups were going nuts in it and carrying it out of the litterbox and chewing/eating on it, leaving tons of tiny bits of hard litter all over the fleece where they were sleeping. Is it possible that their eye (and it is just the left eye with the four of them) got irritated from laying on it? I cleaned the fleece again today and this time put in aspen shavings in the litterbox hoping to cut down on hard stuff carried out to the fleece. Although they are now chewing on the lab blocks and leaving bits of food pieces everywhere now too.
2. There are no other signs of respiratory illness, but I know that could still come. I am especially worried about SDAV since four have suddenly got this eye thing, so potentially infectious. Which also has big implications for adopting out these little guys.
3. Could it be mites? Although they don't seem to be scratching excessively.
Should I take them to the vet (all pups or just sick ones to get checked out?) I presume with pups this young, if there is something going on, they're going to treat potential secondary bacterial infections and use something like amox or zithrax? They all seem energetic and doing well otherwise.
But that's not all
The other litter finally has their eyes opened and starting to move around now. So today we had them out in playtime and discovered that one of them is ataxic, causing her to fall and lose balance. She doesn't seem to have a head tilt but definitely has that drunken style swagger.
My mind is going down all these dark paths on this one, ie. KRV.
See video. It's a bit long. You can see the issues more prominently at the end of the video.
[BBvideo 425,350:1ff299oy]http://youtu.be/AqwiH8dUuBw[/BBvideo:1ff299oy]
I'd really appreciate feedback on both situations
Anyway, today, 4 pups out of the older litter (now 21 days old) have all got porphyrin discharge around the left eye. As a retired Vet Tech I've seen my share of rat illnesses over the years and know that porphyrin discharge can mean something as simple as stress to all the scary respiratory illnesses. I'm not used to raising babies though so I'm a little more worried than usual. And I'm rusty on all my rat health stuff since it's been years since I've had to look at it.
Some notes:
1. I had yesterday's news in the litterbox that Mom uses diligently. However, yesterday the pups were going nuts in it and carrying it out of the litterbox and chewing/eating on it, leaving tons of tiny bits of hard litter all over the fleece where they were sleeping. Is it possible that their eye (and it is just the left eye with the four of them) got irritated from laying on it? I cleaned the fleece again today and this time put in aspen shavings in the litterbox hoping to cut down on hard stuff carried out to the fleece. Although they are now chewing on the lab blocks and leaving bits of food pieces everywhere now too.
2. There are no other signs of respiratory illness, but I know that could still come. I am especially worried about SDAV since four have suddenly got this eye thing, so potentially infectious. Which also has big implications for adopting out these little guys.
3. Could it be mites? Although they don't seem to be scratching excessively.
Should I take them to the vet (all pups or just sick ones to get checked out?) I presume with pups this young, if there is something going on, they're going to treat potential secondary bacterial infections and use something like amox or zithrax? They all seem energetic and doing well otherwise.
But that's not all
The other litter finally has their eyes opened and starting to move around now. So today we had them out in playtime and discovered that one of them is ataxic, causing her to fall and lose balance. She doesn't seem to have a head tilt but definitely has that drunken style swagger.
My mind is going down all these dark paths on this one, ie. KRV.
See video. It's a bit long. You can see the issues more prominently at the end of the video.
[BBvideo 425,350:1ff299oy]http://youtu.be/AqwiH8dUuBw[/BBvideo:1ff299oy]
I'd really appreciate feedback on both situations
