Buck, 18Mos, multiple symptoms

Question
My Hamster, or Hammy, is one of my oldest rats and has recently developed multiple symptoms of illness, but first let me share an incident that may or may not be relevant: We had a large Marchurio cage with 5 big boys in it. Two pairs of fancy brothers, and our favorite Rex. The Rex was introduced last, and notably smaller and probably 8 months younger than the other rats. They had gotten along great until one morning I woke up to the aftermath of my wonderful Rex cannibalized... Very sad. there had been no apparent health problems, we keep our cages clean, feed them well.... After that incident, the boys all seemed lethargic, with 2 of them completely recovering within 3 days, 1 nearly recovered a week later, and Hammy sick.

His symptoms are as follows and are in order of appearance: Pre existing small tumor on his back, "the morning after" he showed VERY unbalanced behavior wabbling back and forth and falling from things in his cage, he was lethargic, and my wife and I noticed reddish brown stains around his nose that look like they are from some kind of discharge. No change for about 3 days when we started noticing abnormal sneezing sounding a little trumpetish, but not bubble like. he also seems to be less aware of things that are going on around him. At 5 days now I have noticed patchy hair loss in Hamster, and the one rat that has not fully recovered from his lethargy. All symptoms persist. He does not have a head tilt, has full use of all limbs, the pre existing tumor has been around about a month and does not feel hard, or fluid filled, it's an inbetween squishy, and has no center depression. He does not seem to have a decreased quality of life, and no signs of ear infection.
I'm interested in your opinion on possible diagnosis, also any input on the cannibalism issue would be greatly appreciated.
thanks so much!
Chris

Answer
Hi Chris

FIrst let me say I am sorry you found your rex this way. Unfortunately it happens though and if you have never seen any aggression issues I can just offer you my semi professional opinion (I say this since I do not have a degree in Veterinary medicine and I am simply a rat care consultant) With everyone else feeling less than par, I would have to assume the Rex rat was probably ill and died when you did not realize it. Believe it or not, the rats way to respect their deceased it to consume them. Why something that seems so barbaric? They do not (A) want any predators to take the deceased rat and (B) having a decaying corpse in their nest will attract predators so they also do this to prevent that from happening.  We can domesticate them as much as we can, but our rats never seem to let go over many natural wild traits. This is one of them.   Sometimes, they just simply bury the rat in litter/bedding and try to hide the body and other times, they do attempt to consume them.
I know it sounds ruthless but again, from the mind of the rat, this is respect.  So, thats my take on the demise of the poor rex. I do not believe he was killed...it is not really in their nature to kill their own like that unless they are super aggressive or the rat is a very young rat and even at that time, they usually dont kill another rat unless they are uber aggressive.  You did not tell me anything about them to indicate that they are, so again I am going by what your telling me.

The rat with the tumor: I do not feel the tumor is related to his current illness. In fact from what you describe, if its not an abscess, which I have my doubts since it is a month old, it may be simply a lipoma which is just a fatty tumor but this is only a guess since I of course have not seen him or aspirated it etc...but from the description it does sound like it may be benign.

The red discharge your describing is called porphyrin. It is a secretion that is produced by a large gland behind the rats eyes called the harderian gland. This gland produces normal amounts of mucus that is normally used to lubricate the rats third eyelid but when the rat is stressed due to illness or severe stress such as a new cage or death of a cagemate or a new cagemate etc....but some rats have trace amounts. Once you see an over abundance of it, this tells you something is wrong.

Check my site and compare photos of a rat with porphyrin discharge, tell me if this is what you saw. You will need to scroll down about half way to find the photos and info on porphyrin.

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

You have described the sound rats make when they have a respiratory better than anyone I have heard in a long time
"Trumpeting"!  Thats perfect way to describe the way they sound when congested!

It sounds to me that there is a respiratory infection going on in hamster and possibly the others as well.  Hearing any kind of noise from your rat other than bruxing or squeaking means something is up so I do suggest that you see a vet with Hamster (I hope I have these names right!!)

Do you have a vet that is good with rats?