Sores on feet

Question
This question is for Sandra Todd please.
Hello Sandra Todd
I wrote about this the other day to you and it went to you and got lost so I am writing to you again about the same thing. Sorry. I dont know what happened to the regular one about this same subject.
My rats Tom and Jerry are 2 year old males and have big huge blisters on the bottom of their feet. My vet said that they are bumblefeet from the cage and I should cover the cage floor so they clear up. He did not give any medicine or nothing and so I put carpeting down and it smells really awful and I keep putting new carpet pieces down every few days but they go to the bathroom on it too much and the sores are not better but in fact,they are worse.
Please help. They bleed and they limp. I think they are in pain and dont want to put them to sleep for sore feet.please dont suggest that. Someone else from a different website told me that it will creep up to their bones of the leg and kill them from infection spreading and I need to put them to sleep if the surgery to cut them off doesnt work.

thank you
from Dora Saranelli


Answer
Hi Dora

Yes I remember your post about this and even wrote a response but it just vanished. Very odd.
Anyhow I will simply write it again, no problem.

For starters let me tell you the condition develops for two reasons:
1. Your rat ate one too many yogis and is a bit too chubby!
2. Your rat doesnt mind standing in his own urine

The pressure of the excess weight from the rat put on the foot slowly causes the skin to break down. These tiny cuts are not even visible to the nake eye so you dont have to piss off your rat and examine the soles of his kangroo like feet. Your going to have to trust me on this.
When the rat stands in soiled area, be it in the litter, the shelf to his cage, or anywhere that there is bacteria, and I say in his own urine that is on the cage floors mainly because urine starts to harbor bacteria soon as the air hits it and repeated exposure to this eventually causes the bacteria to enter into one of the tiny cuts on the rats feet.

Bada bing! BUMBLEFOOT sets in and the frustration begins.

Its a total pain to treat. TOTAL. Why? Because the bacteria that could have come in contact could be anything from the more common strep pathogen to "blastomahistaitisflastomowhalawhalapoopoo" organism
Ok I made that up. LOL But you get my drift.

Treatment? Well..surgery, meh...thats pretty much a waste of time because if the culprit isnt determined its not removed so it will return, no? Makes sense to me at least.

Antibiotics both systemic and topical are warranted as well as padding the living daylights out of the cage. Make it like the rat is walking on a cloud so there is little pressure on his poor sore infested feet.

Also, keep in mind (this is the Vets job really but we ALL know how that goes, dont we?!! :-( the bacteria causing the bumble foot may not be typical so perhaps they can either add a second antibiotic or do a culture or biopsy of the actual tissue to see what type of organism it is causing infection. I would suggest saving some money and using a broad spectrum antibiotic and also one for a fungus as well because we are seeing cases of fungal infections causing bumblefoot as well and some vets were on the brink of having to amputate the rats foot to stop infection from going to the rats bone in the leg etc...and KILLING HIM, and here, the organism causing the infection wasnt even being treated properly since it was a fungal infection and not a staph etc... so the best bet? Two types of antibiotics, keeping the foot dry, keeping everything as clean as you can (we dont expect sterile conditions dont worry!!) and padding the heck out of the cage with baby blankets etc...for the rat to walk on. You can also keep on hand some self adhesive soft gauze type bandaids to put on the rats sore if it oozes blood. I used to use the perfect protective covering made my Dr.Scholls. They were non medicated corn pads and would fit perfect over the bumble and my rat let it go and did not try to remove it because it felt good wearing it. They stopped making them OF COURSE but I stocked up on them when I found they were discontinued.

My next suggestion is to tell you to remove those carpet pieces at once.  They are trapping bacteria and possibly making the bumblefoot worse. You can use other things that will not trap the bacteria such as putting down self stick on floor tiles, plastic needle point canvas (the tiny holes help urine to drain instead of pool in one area) and even plastic disposable cutting boards. Make sure that you wipe these all down daily though because unless your rats are litter trained and NEVER urinate on the shelves etc...you need to keep it as clean as ever to avoid bacteria from breeding.

Hope this helped some!!

Sandra Todd