Heavy Breathing? Trying to Vomit???

Question
QUESTION: My daughter's rat just overcame a infestation (mites? whatever).
The vet gave her medication to apply & she cleaned the cage three times over
several weeks.  The rat always looked perfectly fine throughout, but scratched
itself less & less.  Anyways, that is recent history.
NOW, the rat is doing something new.  It appears to be heavy breathing
through the mouth that involves it's whole body.  It is not violent, but controlled.  The rate seems unaffected by this need.  It could also be
described as it trying to vomit.
Any ideas?
It lasted for about 15 min.  Clyde seems fine now btw.

ANSWER:
Hi Annie


So, Clyde is OK now and he is not displaying those symptoms any more?

If that is the case, there is a high chance he possibly had something stuck in his throat.  Since rats cant vomit, they were lucky that mother nature provided them with small flaps of tissue inside their cheeks. These flaps of tissue fill in the gaps between the incisors and the molars and form a special "net" to catch unwanted particles in their mouth. Often food can get trapped in these flaps and can make the rat feel as if they are choking. After a while they work the object out of the cheek flaps and finish chewing it etc...and all is well. Before they do this though, often the rat owner sees them acting as if they are not able to breathe properly and sometimes they may even produce excessive saliva and drool a bit, which REALLY scares us into thinking they cant breathe!

This possibly could be what was going on with Clyde, although I cant be 100% positive without a hands on exam.

Hope this helped.

Sandra







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

QUESTION: Thanks so much!  Clyde is very much loved.
Yes, Clyde seems fine now & is resting.  It is hot & dry here in Santa Fe, and we
read this could be some mucus in his throat, so Annie filled the bathtub w. some
hot water to increase the humidity.
Again, thanks.

Answer
The extra salivia would probably create the mucus. Did you notice if he was drooling?

Also, do you have a cool mist vaporizer?  You can grab one of those from walmart for $10. That would be good to use for dry air no matter if he was having problems or not. Do you have air conditioning in your house?


You can also add water to plastic milk jugs or empty soda bottles and freeze them. Once frozen, put in cage to make a mini air conditioner. This will give off some cold wet air and he may like licking the frozen water!


We are opposite here in North Carolina.  We are hot and humid, temps in the 90s with equal humidity, but today its overcast so its in the 80s but still humid out.