Rat with sore eyes

Question
Hi,

i have the same problem as another person has mentioned. I have two rats and one of them has trouble with her eyes, with red tears seeming to be around them. she also struggles to open them when she first wakes up. I use biocat litter which is supposed to be good as they cant ingest it. Also, they eat mainly pets at homes complete rat food and they get peas, sweetcorn etc every now and then. I have had them for about 4 months now and they are both very confident and i cant think of anything that would be stressing her out. Please help as i dont know what to do to help her.

Answer


Hi Hannah


I have never heard of biocat litter so I checked it out just to see the ingredients.

The one thing you said did kind of confuse me because you said the litter is good because they cant ingest it.  Do they not have access to the litter, is it below them under a wire floor?   I wasnt sure what you meant about that.

However, I did see one of the ingredients is corn cob and this raised a red flag.


Corn cob may have come from fields that were sprayed with insecticides and in turn the bedding was contaminated
with these chemicals during the  manufacturing process.  
Corncob also has been found that, when wet, grows a fungal contaminate.

Cultures done on these litters have shown up to six species of fungus,cladosporidium, acremonium, penicillium, aspergillus, fusarium,and scolobasidium.) from  after two lab rats were diagnosed with fungal rhinitis.

Have you tried to remove the litter to see if the porphyrin discharge goes away?