Rat Seizuring , please help.

Question
Hi there,

So I have this rat Marshmellow, she is about a year old. About a month ago she had a seizure. I attributed it to a change in diet. We ran out of rat food and gave her a combination of fruits, veggies, and pistachios. So we have given her rat food only for the past month. Except once or twice when we gave her some rice with carrots and cilantro. Today I cut up an an apple and gave her a piece (not thinking) and later on in the day she had a seizure.

I really think it was a change in blood sugar that made her seizure. Being that the after she was given food were the only times in which she had seizures.

I am willing to take her to see the vet. But i have a few things in my way. 1. She is a biter. So she stays in her own cage and is seldom handled without gloves. (I have three other rats that don't bite, but Marshmellow was rescued from a friend that was feeding her bird food and other such things) 2. I'm a college student and would only like to take her in if necessary.

Any of your help would be appreciated. If you have any other questions let me know.

Thank you,

Alisha  

Answer
So sorry for the delay. Computer crashed (power supply) happy my husband is computer savvy so here I am, back with about ten billion questions and I am doing the more critical ones first. Which brings me to you.


Please describe to me what you witnessed your rat doing as far as seizures go.

I also wanted to lead you to my website on rat nutrition.  Your little one needs to be on a good staple food and pistachios should be eliminated from her diet. They are just too high in protein and fat and high protein means kidney damage later in life and we all know what too much fat can do to most mammals.

With proper diet, our rats are living much longer and healthier lives rather than only making it to 2 years old we are seeing rats live to be 3 and older.  Many of my rats live to be 3 and in fact one of my beloved older boys just died at 3.5 years old and his brother is still going strong.

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


I wanted to put your mind at ease about the food change and your concern that the possible change in sugar caused some kind of disturbance with her insulin. To be honest, the foods you are giving her do not even contain the amounts of sugars that would cause to much glucose to stay in the blood thus in turn creating a reaction such as a seizure.
If she was diabetic anyhow, there would be other signs such as excessive thirst and a strange sweet odor in the urine.
Apples are totally fine to give to rats along with many other fruits and vegetables.
To be honest, rats can even safely have a piece of chocolate on occasion (we suggest to use it in an emergency during acute respiratory distress if the rat is hypoxic) Chocolate actually contains a natural bronchiodialator  which can help open the rats airways in an emergency.

Seizures in rats can be caused by  epilepsy, *rare* and it could even be idiopathic and possibly genetic too.

Anyhow, that said, can you tell me what she was doing, how she was acting during her seizure and how long it took for it to stop?


Next up, the biting:  I love to help people make a difference in the lives of their biters. I have extensive training in handling biters, from my wild rat that I had for nearly four years, first named CHOMPS, later JAWS and finally once tame, she became my sweet Holly, to the lab rats that I adopted that were used, abused, poked, probed, cut open for no reason, starved, you name it, and no wonder they bit me and did not trust humans. They were the bigger challenge and it started with pitching the gloves. The gloves keep the mistrust going between the little rat and you. This is negative energy, she cannot relate to your scent since it is masked by gloves, and she can sense your fear.  She would be a new rat and have a much happier disposition if she feels she can trust you and you need to trust her too. She needs to come out of her cage and have fun and get exercise. She needs a space of her own to play and  you can be part of this too once you get her out of her cage. I promise you my method for trust training works and when I send people to my page they usually write back with the good news that their demon jaws is now putty in their hands. Its worth a shot anyhow. If I could take a wild rat that was so mean she hissed and snarled (she was only 11 weeks old at the time I saved her) but her bite was still as painful as an adult rat bite would be and she turned into one of the nicest female rats i have ever had till she passed away close to 4 years old back in the summer of 07, taking a chunk of my heart with her, you could train your little confused scared little biter, too. That is really the reason she is mean. She isnt mean, she is scared, wasnt properly socialized, and needs to know someone trusts her, and donning gloves is a good way to distance yourself from bonding with her. I know why you wear them, i did at one time, too and still do at the clinic (rose pruning gloves are great!) but again, this puts a barrier between you two and it needs to come down.  here is the URL to my page on trust training:

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