Baytrill/barbering/wheezing

Question
Hi Sandra, I have two female rats Banjo and Shuffle, Shuffle is the one having problems. She has started to Barber both her forearms and all of her right arm up to the shoulder including the right half of her chest. This has resulted in a red eczema like mark on her shoulder (no scabs as of yet). I took them both to the vet who told me that Banjo was fine but, Shuffle has developed a slight wheeze (along with her barbering antics) and prescribed her Baytril oral/ml2.5. The directions are to put 0.2ml into 50ml of water, I was advised to add this to their water bottle. The problem is how do i know if Shuffle is taking enough medication? and should i be splitting the dose between a healthy rat and an unhealthy rat?. I have heard that it is possible to spike food with Baytril but how much should i add to how much food? Any help that you could give me on these subjects would be gratefully accepted! Thank you for your time, lloyd.

Answer
You need a new vet ASAP!!!!!!!


Adding ANY medication to water is useless just for the mere fact you have no clue if the rat is getting enough and the worst part is, the water will taste nasty and the rat will stop drinking. talk about a good way to dehydrate your rat!!!

You can give the medication orally. You should use .2mls in yogurt or ice cream etc...twice a day.  However, I am still uneasy that you have a vet that is using primitive techniques.

As for barbering, this is often caused by a behavior problem but it can also be caused from the fact she has a problem with itching etc...and you can try to resolve this first by treating the culprit, which may be dry skin that is causing itching and so she will groom herself to stop it. Rub her bare forelimbs with olive oil.  Its ok if she licks it off, its good for her.  Try this for a week.  Next, does she get out of the cage alot? Does she have toys to play with in the cage? Does she get along with her cagemate?

Let me know your location and I will happily give you some names of a good vet that will treat your rat properly before this respiratory problem gets worse and the next thing he will do is tell you that she needs put to sleep because she wont get better, only because he wont know what to do for her next.