sick rats!

Question
QUESTION: Hi Sandra!  My daughters have five rats all together.  The two male are sick!  They are lethargic and losing weight.  They also have diarrea.  Is there anything I can do to or buy over the counter to help nurse them back to health?  I really dont have $100 to take them to a vet?

ANSWER: Dana

How old are all of the rats?  Are the boys in with the girls?

What is their diet?

If they have active infection, I am afraid there is nothing over the counter that you can use to help them.  It may be something the two of them ate or they may have infection or even ectoparasites.  You need to keep them from dehydrating so try to get them to drink childrens pedialyte or even koolaid water for that matter.  Give them puffed rice too.  This also helps with loose stools.

I am afraid that they will need a vet though and having five rats usually means sooner or later they will really get sick and need medical attention.   If you have males and females housed together and they are intact, you can end up with several dozen babies eventually.  




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: They are both males (housed seperately from girls) and they are both about a year old.  We have been feeding them "kaytee" brand fori-diet crunch with dental bites for rats & mouse.  it has all sorts of stuff in it such as rolled barlesy, rolled corn, oat groats, ground corn dehulled soybean meal, ground wheat, sunflower, porcine meat meal, alfalfa meal, sunflower, peanuts, ground flax seed, corn gluten meal, can molasses, soy oil, poultry meal, fish meal, salt, beet pulp,and a ton of vitimans and such.  They seem better today then yesterday and the sickest one is still drinking....I was told that vitaman drops in their water may help.  what do you think about that.  Now that I think of it this could of started since I switched to this food, or since chistmas we got them a new cage with a all edible rat house.  maybe the house is making them sick!!

Answer
AH HA!!  There ya go!  Someone wrote to me and asked me about the edible houses and I said I do not suggest letting them have it because if they eat it, it could cause potential disturbances with their digestive tract.  Those little cute snack shack things contain alfalfa and rats absolutely cannot handle alfalfa.  I bet thats what the problem is!

As for the diet, I would change it totally anyhow because the stuff in there doesnt give the rat a complete diet.   Try just a rat block, the only one I suggest is by MAZURI if your at the pet store buying it but you can find better ideas here on my site. I have sent alot of people to my site and they follow the links to making their own rat food and its just over all better for them. High protein destroys the kidneys and they should not have more than 15% protein daily. Fats are of course also bad for them, and there is alot of fats in the sunflowers and peanuts in the rat food you are giving them.

here is the link for diets:

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

Meanwhile, i would stop the vitamins. If for some reason they hate the new flavor of the water they may stop drinking totally and this would be bad.  If they have the proper diet they wont need added vitamins.

Sometimes too much of a good thing can be bad too, if that makes sense.

I misunderstood about the rats being with the girls. When you said they were all together I thought you meant boys and girls mixed. That would be a disaster!  LOL

Anyhow, I would get rid of the edible house, give them some puffed rice or puffed wheat or even white rice, cooked, and check out the new diet ideas on my website.  I hope this works. I have a feeling your right though and its for sure the edible house!