rodents...all!

Question
I think ur exactly the person im looking for!! I am planning on bcoming a rodent vet. I know allot about gerbils and quite a bit about hamsters.... except for 1 VERY important thing...illnesses.I would like to now as much as possible about eery type of RODENT illness. Also can u give me as many as possible sites about rodent illnesses? remember, not just gerbils and hamsters, as many rodents with as many illnesses as possible! symptoms, scientific names, treatments...etc. i would go to an actual vet , but there are none that I know of that treat rodents! thnx if u cn help! sincerely, Jenny

Answer
There needs to be more small animal vets. They are hard to find and more people are taking small animals to vets.

In all honesty, I can't tell all the rodent illness because I don't know many, just the most common ones.
Wetail which occurs in hamsters is a bacterial disease that happens when hamsters get stressed or sick. It's more common in long haired hamsters because of their longer fur. The symptoms of wettail are diarrhea, not eating or drinking and being lethargic. This is extremely common in pet store animals due to people always disturbing their sleep and bothering them. This disease is highly contagious.
One disease that you will also probably see a lot of is Mange mites. They are very common in guinea pigs and they cause fur loss, scratching and scabs. The mites live under the skin. Generally most test don't confirm mange mites and so the vet really has to take everything into consideration when diagnosing this. The only medicine that I know that works is ivermectin. This disease is also highly contagious.
I will tell you about one strange thing that happens quite often. I've found that it occurs most often in pet store animals and it's probably due to massive breeding, but I call it sudden death syndrome. The reason behind this is because the animal is perfectly normal, eating, drinking and being a normal small animal, but then the animal just suddenly dies without any indication of the animal being sick and the animal is not old. I personally think this is a problem due to not only genetics but maybe because of a heart condition or some sort of internal condition.

I want to give you two sites which are my absolute favorite for reading up on illnesses. I hope these help.
www.peteducation.com
www.guinealynx.com