Rat death

Question
hi, I have asked you a question or two before about my elderly rat with a tumor and was pleased with the answers so i wanted to ask something else..

I recently had a young rat die she was only 1. We cant figure out what happened, she was eating and everything the day before and literally the next day she was emaciated and could barely move. I pulled her from the care and put her in our quarantine room. I have a farm so naturally i have available fluids here to administer in case or sever dehydration. she was very dehydrated so i gave her some fluids and she seemed to be getting better then the same thing happened again. This time nothing worked and she died within hours of me finding her.

well, i dont think its anything contagious considering her sister and her 4 year old cage mate who has a tumor are ill. and im assuming if the 4 year old isnt sick it cant be contagious.
not to long ago i lost one rabbit we have with similar symptoms only they didnt show any signs of illness, I understand that they are very good at hiding when they are ill but she we not even skinny she also just died for no apparent reason. then after one rabbit died ,she was 6, my male rabbit died who was only 1, then the rat died.

any ideas?

Answer
Its really hard to say without checking her, but there are a few things that cause sudden death. Heart, kidney disease and a really nasty bacteria called Streptococcus pneumoniae, or pneumococcus,which is a very fast moving infection that produces no signs until sudden death.

Kidney disease shows few side effects, but weight loss is more gradual. Heart disease would be a bit more obvious unless she had a heart condition that caused congestive heart failure with acute deterioration and sudden death. Due to her age if her heart or other organ failure was the culprit, it was more than likely congenital.  I do not think there is anything related to the death of your lagomorphs since most of the illnesses rats get are species specific.  I am so sorry for your loss.  Hope this helps. I am sorry I cant be more accurate but it would not be fair to zero in on something without a necropsy. I can only offer you an educated guess and it just so happens that any symptoms she may have displayed go with many different types of illnesses.