spots of blood found on tissue or bedding

Question
Hello there, we have recently purchased a lovely Dumbo rat who is now about 10 weeks old, at first he sneezed a lot and the vet said this was quite normal due to the stress of moving home. The sneezing has stopped completely now and he's a lovely, exciting very healthy looking rat, however he does appear to scratch a lot. He loves to have a piece of tissue to sit on on top of his shelf however this is very often stained with faint/watery blood like stains. We change it regularly and clean his cage weekly. His urine seems perfectly normal and clear. We're not sure if it's linked to the scratching as we cannot find any blood on him or his fur anywhere! it just seems to suddenly appear on this tissue and sometimes his bedding. We did take him to the vet where she checked for mites, nothing was found and she said he seems perfectly healthy!

Can you offer any possible explanations?

hope so!

Answer
Hi Lucy

Absolutely there is an explainatin and I am surprised the vet did not realize this.  Is she a regular vet and not an exoics specialist because this is very normal what she is doing.

What your seeing is porphyrin secretions. Porphryin is a reddish to reddish brown discharge that comes from the rats eyes and nose. It is prodcued from the gland located behind the rats eyes known as the harderian gland.  When the rat is stressed from illness or a new home, new cage etc...the gland produces excessive amounts of porphyrin and the rat will sneeze it out sometimes, leaving stains on anything light colored.  Some of it appears as spatters of reddish dots or stains all over.  It is also found around the nostrils and even the rats eyes.  It may also cause some staining of the fur if the rat is light colored. When he grooms he may get some on his paws and if he is white the porphyrin will stain   his fur a pinkish tinge.

Check HERE for photos and info on my site

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

Please let me know if this is what you are seeing, esp the spatters on the white tissue. You can use white paper towels and give him about 4 of them ripped into big pieces and he will make a great nest. You will probably see spatters of red porphryin on the paper towels by the next day or sooner.  It may be found in his urine as well which may make the vet think the rat has blood in the urine unless  a urine culture is taken.

Also, the scratching could be related to his diet. High protein diets can cause itching and skin problems too, and of course, it is really bad on a rats kidneys and leads to the third most common cause of death in rats which is kidney disease.

Here is the link to info on diet and itching/scratching:

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

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