Nova RIP 2007

Question
Hi there. I had a albino rat last year that got sick and unfortunately died but it was rather odd the way she did and I wanted to ask you if you could help out so it will never happen again!

RAT INFO
-bought from pet shop, PetSmart
-Female, 14 months old(when symptoms began), not fixed
-regular metal bar cage cleaned out every weekend
-Carefresh bedding instead of woodchips
-diet (for 7 rats) consists of 1 cup of Browns Food & Treat Gourmet All-in-One(fruits,nuts,veggies,seeds,grains) & one cup of Living World Extrusion pellets every 2-4 days (they like to store it)
-we bring all of them out to play every single day and they also have a mansion of a cage

She was a real healthy rat, she would of been about 14 months when she started to show signs of sickness. Her nose was very stuffed. It seemed like she had a cold, always sneezing and her breath seemed to be quicker than usual. She started to almost quarantine herself from the others because she wouldn't sleep with the rest of the other rats. Every morning for about a week she had more mucus coming from her nose and here's where it gets weird. I kept finding blood on the cage bars and so I did an inspection on her and she had been chewing on her rear right foot, almost missing a whole toe. I have a spare small cage so I put her in there away from the others in case something was really wrong and I didn't want the others to hurt her. I couldn't afford bringing her to the vet because I don't make that much money so I tried to take care of her myself.. but she kept chewing away @ her foot when I was asleep @ night and couldn't stop her. Eventually, she did it so much that she couldn't walk anymore thus she could not get to her food or water. I would have to put water on my fingers and put it in her mouth.. it was really sad and hard for me to watch her go through this. So, long story short. She had so much fluid in her lungs and lost so much weight from not eating, she died. This all happened in about 3 weeks.

Do you have any answers to what happened to her?

Thanks for listening and I hope to hear from you soon!

Natasha

Answer
I don't know what would've caused her to chew off her own feet - that is beyond bizarre -- however I think she probably had a very advanced case of upper respiratory probably caused by mycoplasmosis. If you google "mycoplasmosis in the pet rat" you'll find a few articles and be able to compare her symptoms.