amoxicillin dose for my rats

Question

my baby rats  

year old females   Hi,
I have four rats and I had two but I bought two babies so now I have four. I noticed that both the babies have that reddish stuff around their eyes and nose and I know they have a respiratory infection so I'm going to give all of them fish mox (amoxicillin). It comes in 500mg capsules and I need to know how Much flavoring and what dose to give them. My two baby rats are about 6 to 7 weeks old and my almost adult rats are about a year old and waigh about half a pound. I will use watered down jelly or jam for the flavoring. If you know what measurements to give them please help me. I'm not very Good at dosing medication.

Answer
Hi Mayson, thanks for the pics.  Your ratties are adorable!

The reddish stuff is called porphyrin and is a sign of stress or illness, or stress due to illness.  Ideally, you want to give Baytril for respiratory infections which are caused by a mycoplasmosis flare up, which is likely what is happening.  However, baytril should not be given to babies as it can have adverse affects.   Amoxicillin is the next best choice for your babies, but if you can get baytril either from your vet or online, that is what should be given to your adults rats for the infection.  Amoxicillin may or may not resolve the infections.  You will know if it's going to work by looking for improvement within the first 3 days of giving the med.  if you don't see improvement in 3 days on the Amoxi, then you must switch to Baytril....yes, even for the babies, even with adverse effects, because it's important to cure he respiratory infection as it can lead to pneumonia and even death of left untreated.

Amoxicillin needs to be administered by the rats weight so you will need a scale with measurements in grams.   Alternately you can have them weighed by a vet.   You will also need a syringe with measurements in milliliters, which you can get from a vet if you don't have one.  

Here is the dosing information that I pulled from a file written by a trusted source...

Mixing: Mix 1 - 250 mg tab w/5mL = 50mg/mL. Refrigerate after mixing, stir well - Throw away after 14 days and Mix a fresh batch

Dosing:
(Give the following dose BID/twice daily)

Rat Weight       Doasge
(grams)          (cc/ml)
500          .40
450          .36
400          .32
350          .28
300          .24
250          .20
200          .16
150          .12
100          .08
50          .04
36          .03

I hope this helps and that your babies recover quickly.  Please let me know if I can answer any other questions.