Rat with pneumonia possibly do to mycoplasma

Question
QUESTION: Ok, I got a rescue rat in the other day. basically on her death bed! Well she has now been to the vet twice and is actually pulling through OK for the meantime.... here is my website, you can visit it and see more about her and the story httP://www.bareskinrattery.weebly.com Ok, now the thing is I have no clue about her really. I got her in along with four other rats she was housed with. Now I have been breeding rats for sometime, and luckily for myself most of my rats have ALWAYS been healthy. Now I know about mycoplasma etc. But what I am not too experienced with is a flare up of it. Now I have quarentined these guys away from my breeding stock cause I also breed, but also take in rescues that need care to be rehomed later. anyway, so the other four now one has died just tonight pretty quickly actually. NOT too sure if it was the same problem, because she was actually bleeding from her vulva. Anyways so the remainder three... they are showing signs, heavy breathing etc. My little one, the one that is deathly ill, has pneumonia now because of what they think is cause by a flare up of the mycoplasma. Now my question is... is it the mycoplasma that I have to worry about killing my rats if one has it bad... or the pneumonia? If she is spreading it to the ones she was housed with... is it right now with them just a flare up of mycoplasma, or actually pneumonia? or could there be something else, and maybe it is not even mycoplasma or pnuemonia? What can I do? i have ALOT of prized rats at stake here! My little one is on baytril and doxy, and actually seems to help. It is now saturday and my vet is not open til monday. I have no meds for the other three... And the emergency vet wants to charge me a seperate fee for each for the emergency apointment ALONE! Not happening1 what can i do? How should I quarentine these guys? I am afraid my breeding stock may have been exposed for about a half a day when I first got them... WHAT TO DO!!?!?!? I need answers cause I seem in a VETY short time, to have ALOT of sick rats on my hands, that are breathing heavy, not eating etc. WHAT CAN I DO??!?!? Please help, and I want more knowledge on this situation... and could it be something else?? Alot of raspy noises, heavy breathing etc! OH and the cage OR TANK shall I say these guys came in, was soooo soaked with urine all the way through their bedding, I puked just rtying to clean it! IT WAS SOOOO bad, WEEKS worth of them sitting in this filth!! They were stained with urine, all the white on them, was YELLOW!! and also, all my rats are kept in open ferret cages, not tanks... but what should i do with these guys, since it seems it is airborn? ALL my breeders are seperated now in another room... BUT like I said they may have been exposed!! BUT not sure.... what should I do???

ANSWER: They need treated.......they need medicated.  It is probably not contagious and due to the poor conditions that they were kept in they have serious respiratory issues.  Did you know they were sick when you brought them home?  Are they in a separate air space than your existing rats?

If they did not come in direct contact with your own rats (the sick ones) chances are they will be fine.  

How bad are they? Are they cyanotic? Are they gasping?  You need to hydrate them, feed them baby food, watermelon, keep them warm until you can get them medicated.  How much baytril and doxy do you have? Can you share until you get the others to the vet on Monday?

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QUESTION: I might be able to share.... if it is not contagious then how did this happen so suddenly? THEY WERE ALL fine when I got them, EXCEPT the sick one...she was noticeably sick when I got her, and she has pneumonia now. did you see her on my website it tells you all about her on there... on the sick rat update part. Anyway... so maybe it is something else? Cause it all seems to be contagious.... flare ups of mycoplasma are contagious though... BUT flare ups are not always bad... some just get sneezy etc. Yes they are bad off.... Very heavy breathing, not open mouth or anything yet... but somewhat raspy. THEY WERE FINE YESTERDAY! i don't understand! This is sooo sad! The emergency vets want to charge me $125 for each one i bring in just to bes seen! And all my other rats, have been kept seperate in a whole other room door closed etc, but were exposed to the ones that were not showing any signs four days ago....none of the rats other then the ones that came in with the sick one, have had contact with the very sickly one... she has been sick for quite some time though, she was deathly skinny when I got her, and super dehydrated etc.... the vet had given her fluids and she is doing better now with the antibiotics... You should definately check my website I gave you... i have lots of pictures, and you can read all about it... BUT the others had NO SIGNS!! looked perfectly normal... have had them four days now... but then all of a sudden, all of them today have started the heavy breathing and started all the tell tale signs, but one guess couldn't handle it, and passed pretty quick!

ANSWER: No, myco itself is only contagious when the conditions are right. If the rats immune system is weakened from poor care, this could make them more suspectible to infection.  Secondary infecions are contagious, especially if it is streptococcal pneumoniae.  This is a fast moving and often deadly infection that is contagious and is secondary to mycoplasma pulmonis.  If these rats were kept in poor conditions as you stated, chances are they have secondary infections.  The treatment should be more aggressive than baytril and doxycycline.  Gentocin injections are warranted and if they are having respiratory distress or are hypoxic, they need oxygen. Nebulization of the medications are also warranted as this can get the medications into the lungs faster.

Are the rats feet blue or purple?  Are they gasping? Do their sides sink in when they breathe?  Are they anxious?
This is not mycoplasmosis, this is more like pneumonia and for all of them to have it at once it is probably strep related.  Baytril is not active enough against the strep bacteria.
If you cannot get them to the vet till Monday, there is not much more you can do unless you have various meds handy.   Do they have excessive porphyrin from their eyes? Do you notice any swelling in their throats? This could indicate SDA.

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QUESTION: Hi Sandra.... No they do not have any red gunk coming out.... Why is it so many vets are not too informed about this stuff!! I mean the baytril and doxy thats all they gave me even though the one that came to me was basically on her death bed..... the condition she was in is terrible, and thats ALL she gave me!! I just don't understand it! OK, can you tell me then, what meds I should be giving them.... should I get gentocin?? The other three that are bad, are not that bad yet... and their feet are not blue YET.... The one that got sick first... is still all blue, but still alive, and actually somewhat fiesty...but she was in worst condition when she was at the vet.... they didn't do much, gave her a shot of baytril, BUT couldn't get it in actually injected it into the skin itself! I was a vet tech for years, so I am pretty equiped with doing things my way... it stinks though because I myself do not have much handy... I do have clavamox...but that won't help right? I might be able to find someone with gentocin.... Not sure... I will keep trying to get some meds from rehabbers I know.... So what should I be giving them.... ?  Even as a vet tech, I tell you i have more insight and can do alot more things then some of these vets working with exotics!! I have yet to find a vet that is not baytril happy! All I am glad though is the first vet I brought the first one sick to, told me he wanted to put her down.... then this one said oh no... she might have a fifty fifty chance of surviving...but yet only gave her baytril and doxy! And the baytril injection, obviously diod not work cause it was in the skin, so she only gave it to her by mouth there!

Answer
Be very careful of baytril injections.  Since as you know, rats are very little muscle mass and its hard to inject them. The best place for injections is right in the flank, but vets go right for the back of the neck between the shoulder blades and its usually done subcutaneously.  This is the only real way to inject a rat and the bad thing is, baytril is very caustic and it coagulates under the skin. This causes breakdown of the delicate tissues and you end up with a nasty ulceration from the baytril.  This can become so bad it can cause issues with bleeding and alot of discomfort.  Read on my website about it here.

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/mycoplasmosispage.htm


Also, the reason vets are not totally up to par with rat care is because there are not enough vets around that are truly educated properly about their ailments and how to treat them.
People get seriously confused, and rightly so, about who is a vet for rats and who isnt. Exotic vets are vets that treat the uncommon companion animal, now known as the exotic companion mammal specialist.  people dont think rats are exotics, which they arent really, same goes for rabbits, hamsters, ferrets etc...but its the uncommon animal, in other words.  
Anyhow, vets may advertise that they see exotics so automatically people assume this means they are exotic specialists. Also. people see ads that say SMALL ANIMAL VET and people get confused thinking its a vet for small animals like rats, ferrets etc....when all this means is small animal vet is dog/cat rather than large animal vet who would be horse slash farm animal. You get my drift since your a vet tech. Many vets have a "strong interest" in exotics but this in no way implies they are exotic vets.  I have seen so many bad vets that treat rats and make matters worse. Once, someone wrote and told me her vet said her rat was mentally retarded and blind because she kept swaying her head from side to side and suggested euthanasia. I about flipped out when I heard that and I sent her to my website to the page about head swaying and also told her to check out the utube videos so she can see its very common in rats to to this in order to judge distance due to poor depth reception etc.... and she was so upset her vet did not realize this. The list goes on....its sad, its pathetic but the good news is that FINALLY there is a new specialty like I said earlier, the exotic companion mammal specialist and the first state boards for this specialty will be this fall.   FINALLY!   This is why I started Critter city website, to educate rat owners since so many vets are unaware of half of the stuff I have up there. My dogs vet was floored when I told her my rat takes enalapril for his heart disease. I sat there and educated her for an hour and now she will see rats on the side but still wont operate on them but she is confident enough now to treat respiratory infections and other stuff.  


As for clavamox working, yes, it should have some impact on the infection since I strongly suspect it is caused by streptococcus.  Penicillin or a penicillin derivative is the  drug of choice for strep pneumonia.