Possible Mycoplasmosis Infection in rats, not responding to treatments.

Question
Hello Sandra,

I have a couple of questions for you about mycoplasmosis (or maybe its just a resipitory infection, how do i tell?) and my rats. I just finished reading the page on your website, but I wanted to ask you some more questions that have to do with my actual situation. I noticed that my rats were sneezing, out of blue. I have 6 adults all together, and at the time a pregnant female (she already delivered 12 pups) so as you can imagine sneezing little ratties is not something I want to be hearing! I made a vet appointment and got my rats checked out, they got their medication (the standard baytril/doxycycline) but they have not made much improvement. Still some sneezing, and one of them is starting to wheeze. Anyway to get to the point, my vet is newer to rat treatment, so far she has done an excellent job but I wanted to get your opinion on whether you would recommend changing medications or going back on the bay/doxy? They were only put on the baytril 1xd for 7 days and the doxy 2xd for 14 days. I don't feel like that is long enough for them to really improve. They are larger, full grown rats, so i think they could handle a longer duration of medication. My other question was in regards to the babies just born. Unfortunately I believe they may end up being sick because all my rats got whatever this little sneezing frenzy is...and I am really concerned. If they did end up being ill, when would be an appropriate age to treat them, and with what medication?

Any advice would help. Obviously i will check with my vet as well, I am just trying to gather as many opinions as possible. Thank you so much for you time. Sorry for the lengthy question.

B

Answer

I would put the older rats on baytril, drop the doxy and add amoxil.  It is a very big possibility that there is a secondary infection and your dealing with myco along with another bacteria that is not responding to baytril, which is an anaerobic bacteria.  Amoxil will take care of that right away!  Baytril is generally not recommended with treating a strep infection because it is known to be weak against this type of bacteria.

As for the safety of drug use in baby rats, baytril should not be used unless they are at least 4 months old. The safest drug that is effective against myco and works well with young rats, and also lactating rats would be zithromax.  I would not treat them for sneezing unless it is excessive.  Some sneezing is normal in rats esp if they are sensitive to their surroundings.