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eye, respritory, and vaginal bleeding

21 17:40:01

Question
QUESTION: hello first we have had a liter of hairless rats that we where not able to get homes for so we decided to take care of them and to give them the best life possible.The father of these rats has had several problems with alergys. he has to have the right dustfree liter or his eyes go wacky and begins to sneeze alot. Well he passed it onto his kids as well and we have about five that sneeze often which we where concerned with.ok on to the first rat female hairless never had any problems with her what so ever she is the mother of the liter and her name is cleo. Recently she has a white spot in her front part of the eye itself, and we are not sure if she either has an infection or got her eye scratched by another rat. it covers half her eye and she cannot see out of it I think. There is no parifrin and no swelling, and it at first looked like it was just something in her eye. When you look closely its oblong and looks like theres a bit of red toward the front of the white spot or glob. Is it an infection from another rat scratching her eye? Second rat, shes the daughter names squeak, we called her this cause she always squeaks when you pick her up. She also has always made a weird breathing noise when she is excited or nervouss.kinda like a grunting noise made while breathing in and out.Its kind cute but she stops when shes suttled down or does it again if she wants something. Is this normal? And my concern is lately shes been sounding like shes building fluid up and she doesn't quiet down until she cofs and you can tell shes coufing fluid up or something. Is this just a result of her noise making or something more serious. She shows no other signs  of problems, but i have found that they tend to hide there problems until its serious especially since theres six rats all together in the cage.Last question and i promise i wont bug ya no more. Third rats name is White Girl and shes also a daughter and hairless. She has been acting normal no signs of any problems, but has vaginal bleeding. It has been a come and go thing for the past month and a half we thought it went away but is back again. She show no sign of firmness in the lower belly area and doesn't seem to be pained by us pressing there, and the blood is not diluted at all. which concerns us because we don't know if its 100% sure that its a urinary track infection or what. We have administered meds before, "amoxacilin, doxy, and batril," and try to diagnose and treat if anything goes wrong due to the amount of rats we have and the costs associated in dealing with lemon rats,LOL. We have had a few rats pass two with respiratory infection and one with a tumor. We are worried that the rats bred where to closely related to each other even though we where assured by the pet store we got them from that they where not closely related. i really do appreciate your time and any advice is a big help. thnx eli and missy


ANSWER: Can you take a photo of the rat with the white spot on the eye?

It may be a cataract Does she act like she can see ok?. Also, do you have a vet for them?  I understand its costly and if you have meds handy now we can probably work on it without involving a vet YET, but in case you need one I can help find on e for you.

ALso, How old is the rat with the vaginal bleeding?  Is it heavy and bright red or brownish and light?

Also you can ask me as much as you want and need. That is why I am here!

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QUESTION: well it looks like regular blood not thin or coghagulated at all it comes and goes now the rat with the eye problem was put in another cage and now we have one there named precious that has the bleeding is it her being to ruff when smelling them? her eye is now very bad and has an lump that looks like a cyst infection and the rest of the eye is redish though its hard to see because shes got black eyes but its glossy and redish tent and the spot has turned into a cyst that looks like you could pop but i will not do that ofcourse. we started her on cephalexin the day i asked the question. and i have been doing the same for the one with vaginal bleeding in case its a urinary infection, but now im leaning towards it being another rat being to ruf when smelling them how else could i all of a sudden have two rats with the same problem that is non contagious? but where going to take her in tomorrow, the one with the eye problem. we still need to figure out if that is correct about the bleeding problem. and the rat with the congestion is on the same meds and were hopeing that its a secondary infection if she does not seem to get better i was going to put her on doxy for microplasma. it came on very slowly so it could very well be micro instead of a secondary. any help you could offer us would be appreciated thnx. eli and missy
p.s. i wrote this in a hurry sorry if spelling and punc. is off

ANSWER: I hope the vet you see is a good certified exotic vet. You can check here at this list to be sure your vet is there. If he isnt listed chances are he is NOT an exotic vet at all but just a vet that sees exotics.

Here is the url:

http://www.aemv.org/vetlist.cfm

The rat with the eye infection may need it removed totally.  If that is the case, the vet should be a skilled surgeon and also qualified  as an exotic vet.  Check out my site. I have a photo of my rat with his eye that has active infection to check out.  Let me know if this is how it looks but do get him to the vet asap.

Go to this link and scroll down to see the story on eye infection and his eye.

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

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

QUESTION: yup jst like your pick except not as discolored origanly started with a cyst of somesort on the right side of the eyeball and was gone the next day her eye looks dehydrated but is improving sence ive been giving her doses of cephalexin where hopeing she can keep it but if the eye becomes aprently unstable or if the infection persist well have to take her in. the only problem is that we do not have the money for the vet to take it out and thats why we havnt gone. and we have another big issue to one of our other females is still bleeding and it looked like there was tissue damage in her special place lol. Looks like where gonna have to take her in some how ill ask someone for help i guess cause shes allready on antibiotics for a problem with a broken leg she had and her foot keeps getting infected and the skin keeps breaking at the heal of her foot. the bleeding on the other rats ceased sence we seperated them from the rat we thought to be causing the problem and her bleeding though mild doesnt seem to stop. but any suggestions that we can act on ourselfs would be appreciated. I know you shouldnt have a pet unless u can properly care for it. but this lemon rat pack has racked up the doctor bills as it is and we wont be able to do anything till this next month hits do to me being on disability. argh its tuff but her eye seems to be stablizing and im kinda in a rut with wondering how ill pay my bills much less go to a vet. would the eye start to loose the infection color and go back to black if it where worsening it does look a little damaged but not as bad as it did? and with the bleeding are there any imidiate areas that another rat could damage that would be life threatning or do i jst need to give it a few more days and keep her on the antibiotics to keep her from getting an infection?

Answer
I wish so much I could help you but I cant. Unfortunately, the ailments that your rats have need medically treated and there is just nothing over the counter that will help. I wish there were, because I know vets can be expensive. I also know that people do buy pets when they are able to care for them, things happen, jobs are lost, etc...etc...and it ends up that its hard to have extra money just to pay the car payment let alone a few hundred for animals (pets)  Maybe you can get outside help? A loan from a friend or family member?  If your credit is good you can apply for care credit. Alot of people go that route.  How are things going now, btw?