watery eye

Question
I have a almost 2 month old hairless rat and she has a watering eye problem. She lives in a cage by herself I use recycled paper small animal bedding and i feed her reggie rat food. I have this same set up for my other four rats and they are all healthy so im not thinking its the setup. Now about the eye. I had been noticing for 2 days it had been looking dry and then today well this morning when she came up from her nest she was not opening her eye as quickly and was watery. It is now open all the way with some fluid around the edges of her eye and a bit of crust on the fur surrounding. This is all compared to her other eye which looks normal. Now there is no sign of poryphrin. Well this might sound a bit silly but i looked up pictures of rats with poryphrin around the eye and it looks nothing like that. There is no red discharge, it is not swollen nor does she rub her eye a lot. Just excessively watery. well understanding that it is a problem, is it a serious problem? What remedies could i use? Is it correct for me to assume it is a respiratory problem? also i am afraid that there is no vet around me suitable to diagnose a small animal such as a rat.

Answer
It could be a scratched cornea or a corneal abrasion, or an infection.  Your the second reader today that wrote in about her hairless rat having eye trouble.  As I told her, hairless rats are notorious for eye problems due to the fact they  lack eyelashes that are needed to protect their eyes from debris.  Also, the rat has protruding eyes which also put their eyes at risk for scratches or debris that may cause infection.  She should see a vet.  Let me know your location and I will give you names of vets that are qualified to treat rats.  There are vets around like that, they are just not easy to find and sometimes when you think you found one, they turn out to only know the bare minimum about rat care and its a huge waste of money and time that is ticking against the rat.  Again, let me know your location and I will look in my database for you. Sometimes you may need to drive out a bit, maybe 45 minutes or so for the right vet, but its worth the extra time to be sure you have the right vet for your rat.