Swollen Foot?

Question
QUESTION: A few weeks ago a dumbo rat of mine passed away (may she rest in peace) her back right foot had swollen up from her toes to her thigh and she wouldn't even let me touch it.
She did have some sort of a skin abrasion on her right upper thigh but it was hard to tell through her fur what it really was. I thought she may have been bitten by a spider that had crawled in through the vents or something...?

This morning I woke up to find that her twin sister (a hairless rat) is having the same symptoms yet not as severe.
She is limping and her back left foot seems puffier than usual. She stretches it constantly, at first I thought maybe it was asleep but I watched her for another half hour and it didn't improve.
The hairless rat, Ex is her name, has no bitemarks or open sores or even tiny cuts in her toes, nothing that says "hey i'm going to cause an infection!".
I checked her all over three times so far!
I worry it may be a genetic disease seeing as her sister suffered from the same thing.
I've given her a rat sized dose of kids motrim (i use to work with small animals so i knew the dosage) but i am worried that I may lose her too.

Any ideas what it may be?? The rats in the cage next to hers haven't shown any signs of any pain or illness at all.

I hope you can help me, thank you.
Haley

ANSWER: Hi Haley

I am really sorry for your loss. That sounds so tragic, especially when it is so sudden like that.

I have a few things to ask first. Its really difficult for me to be spot on accurate when it comes to things like this that I cannot examine hands on and of course without seeing her and doing a few tests (mainly blood work) its difficult to determine what actually occurred but there are several things it could have been:

Are your rats extremities blue or purple?

With the first rat it kept pulling me to say she had sepsis from possible Ulcerative pododermatitis but this was acute, right? She did not have any sores on the bottom of her feet prior to this is that correct?

If it came out of the blue like that it sounds like it possibly could be a blood clot that probably traveled to her lung and caused a pulmonary embolism.


Do you have baby aspirin handy?  It also comes in childrens liquid form.

OR

Possibly bite like your thinking, some type of reaction. Do you have benadryl (liquid) handy?

Before I go on, I need to know these few things:

Did they come in contact with anything new?


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

QUESTION: Yes it was a tragic loss, i've lost a few rats in my time but she has been the hardest to cope with so far.
The first rat had no sores, scratches or anything except that strange wound on her thigh that seemed like it had scabbed over already. ((she had been fine the day before running around on my shoulders as usual, eating drinking etc..))

my hairless rat's feet are pink like her body((no blue or purple, just that slightly darkened pink swell)), the swelling has gone down significantly since this morning but i'm still watching her, i cleaned out her cage and washed all her toys just in case it was some kind of mite or something.

She also has no bites, scratches, sores on any of her hands or feet or in between her toes or fingers nor even on her tail or genitals.
I had given her some motrim for the pain early this morning so about 6 hours later I had no liquid benadryl handy so i took a benadryl caplet cut it open and sprinkled the tiniest amount on a treat, she took it instantly, within 2 hours the swelling had gone greatly!!

The only new thing I can think of the hairless rat coming in contact with is the rat in the cage next to her's had a litter of 5 babies(3 weeks old now) I let her sniff one while it was in my hand a couple times cuz i might want to keep it. But as for the sister rat that passed away the babies were born after her passing. And I'd had the mother for 2 weeks prior to her death. No new foods, drinks or vitamin drops.
My husband noticed a cockroach crawling around in the kitchen this afternoon, parhaps it could have bitten the girls? Or would a roach be toxic if they had gotten a hold of it and eaten it?? so many possibilities!
Thanks for getting back so me so soon, I greatly appreciate your time and efforts to help me uncover this mystery!
-Haley

p.s. i'd just take her right to a vet but no vets in my city cater to small exotics! its a 40 minute drive to the nearest vet that does!!

ANSWER: Hi Haley


If the benadryl worked, this shows it is some kind of reaction for sure, but to what, I don't know.

The cockroach does come to mind...do you lay poison down for them?
If you do and the roach had eaten the poison and the rats ate the roach etc.. there may be a chance this is the culprit but I am guessing.

I suck today. I wish I knew. This is bizarre for sure. If it were just one rat I would say it sounded like a blood clot that traveled from her foot possibly due to an old injury, and traveled up to her lung causing a pulmonary emboli, but if the second rat has displayed similar symptoms, it would be nuts to assume it happened twice. So thats rule out.

I am going to take a stab at this and say it is a reaction of sorts possibly from a bite. Also, keep up the benadryl. I would buy the liquid so it can be dosed accurately, which would be:

0.2 mg/lb twice a day by mouth

Please let me know how it goes today. I am going to ask around today to see what the vets think.
I have to drive  45 minutes to my vets so don't feel bad. I think many of us do. There are few exotic vets in this entire world (130 true certified exotic vets) and the other vets that see exotics are those that take what we call "an interest" in exotics, which more or less means self taught, like myself (although I am not a vet of course)




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

QUESTION: Hi again,
Bizarre, definately, I though it may be genetic which I'm sure may still be a possibility and maybe my naked rat handled it better than her sister or perhaps if I had tried benadryl with the first rat she would have made it.

Well I woke up this morning and little Ex was fine and dandy she still favors that foot a bit but the swelling has gone down entirely and she is climbing the wire bars again and eating and drinking normally as before. I'll go out and get the liquid benadryl just in case.

And yes i use roach motels under my oven and fridge (just in case anymore show up)it upsets me that those roaches would dare get near my rats though, darned things. It's so clean over there.

Thanks again so much for your time and advice. And i know what you mean about lack of exotic vets, most vets just guess. They treat a rat like they'd treat a kitten or small puppy. Which can be close but still off target. I hope someday to be able to help out the small/exotic pet community like you currently are. can't wait to read your book!

((on a totally different subject, i mentioned my rat babies...i have homes for them all but they are only 3 weeks old today, some people say 4 weeks is safe to adopt them out on their own others say 5-6 weeks, what would you suggest? I myself am leaning toward 5 so they can nurse off mama longer and get stronger.)) thanks!

-Haley

Answer
Hi Haley


That is such good news that the other rat is ok. Still doesn't take the pain away from losing the other rat though and does nothing to solve the mystery as to what occurred.  This is morbid to bring up but if something like this should occur again, you can put the little angel nice and wrapped in a towel and in a box and put it in the refrigerator (never freezer as this can alter the tissue samples and render them useless) and bring the rat in to the vet for a necropsy.  Your vet should do it for free unless there are no signs that are visible and tissue samples need sent out and this is when it costs around $100 to do. Its for peace of mind but also has helped my vet and others better understand so much when we allow them to do necropsies on our loves. It hurts to know they are not coming back but helps too, because we are helping other rats that may end up with XYZ ailment in the future.  I don't do this if we knew what it was from (chronic lung disease) but we also have shed alot of light on kidney and liver disease and the symptoms we over looked in the past.  We also have found alot more rats die from brain abscesses due to such nastiness like meningococcal meningitis and Encephalitis when we originally thought our rats were having strokes, we were so wrong.
So think of it that way and donating our rats for necropsy doesn't seem so...disrespectful... I guess is the word I am searching for.
One time my favorite rat was out playing with me and it was bedtime. I gave him his usual yogi treat that he always waited for on the top shelf after playtime was over. Rats learn by repetition as you probably know and Peanut had it in the bag how our routine would end every night. I kiss him goodnight and tell him COOKIE! And he would scamper to the top shelf of his cage and wait for his so called cookie, which was a yogi.  One day after eating his yogi he made this horrible noise. I thought it was coming from my rabbits cage and by the time I realized it was from Peanuts cage, there he was, dead, tongue out, eyes open...dead. I just lost it right there and grabbed him and tried CPR like some freak (to no avail) and just...well it was bad lets just say that. I didn't surrender his body for an hour or more and barked at my husband when he insisted he take Peans and put him in the towel. I kept him close and warm to the point rigor couldn't even set in. I just couldn't believe he was DEAD! He is the rat in my profile that says FOREVER and you can see him standing up kissing my face. The other one is my old old rat, Mister Jingles, who died a few years ago too.  Anyhow, turns out Peanut had a bad heart and it just gave out. Just like that. 14 months old.  No signs of illness, nothing..but at least I knew what killed him because i thought he choked on that yogi and I even told the vet to NOT tell me if he died from choking or I would just never be able to stand living with the guilt and would blame myself somehow.
So you see...they just leave us out of the blue like that and sometimes we don't know why and other times we find out and learn more about it along the way.  I wish these guys could at least live 6 or 7 years....my oldest lived close to 4 years old so that was a plus. She was a little wild rat too.

Ok sorry to go off topic...thats normal for me. LOL
I do think that there was a chance the cockroach may have eaten the poison and bit the rat or she ate the bug and ingested the poison but thats a shot in the dark..a guess really.  I just hate to say I don't know....and I don't, not really.  

As for the baby rat pups (I would LOVE a baby in the house again!!)
My rats are 15 months and two of them are over 2 years old now. All males.
I would say to be safe, right around 4.5 weeks old for the males. I waited for my male pups to be 4.5 weeks old and took them out and let them live in the cage for another week before they went to their forever homes and the girls nursed another week. Once the males were done nursing though mom decided she liked not having all those pups on her and started to nurse the girls less and less which amazed me since most moms will just keep nursing till "we" put a stop to it by removing the female pups from the mother for a few days giving her milk time to dry up etc...
Anyhow by putting the males in their own cage for a week before adopting them out this gives you more time to be sure they are doing good with the nippled on the water bottle and can drink it good on their own and are eating well etc...
I am just getting those pangs of rattie love in my belly now....the butterflies you get when you see baby rats and watch them run and play and wrestle and pass out to sleep just as fast as they woke up. Its pretty hilarious.