Sick dumbo help

I recently acquired some symbols for breeding and noticed they have a red ring around the eye. I thought it was scratched but it doesn't seem to want to go away. And today the female dumbo is skinny and seems to be breathing heavy. Have you experienced this and what do you do. I may have to see a vet but my wife just says feeding but I don't like to feed my snakes sick food and besides I like the dumbos.

1.1 pastels, 1.0 lesser, 0.1 spider, 1.3 norm. 1.0 fire 0.1 RTB 0.0 sav. Mon.

Pictures?

This one seems to be improvinghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/07/11/e2yta6y4.jpg

1.1 pastels, 1.0 lesser, 0.1 spider, 1.3 norm. 1.0 fire 0.1 RTB 0.0 sav. Mon.

Looks like porphyrin. Rats secrete it when stressed or if they have some kind of irritation or infection. Have you changed bedding or anything? Noticed any scratches or irritation around the eye? Check around the feet and nose, see if there's any additional staining. I'd keep an eye on it, but it doesn't look too bad from the pic.

Forgot to add, it could also indicate the beginnings of an upper respiratory infection.

That is porphyrin, which is produced under stress and/or when they are sick. Basically, wherever you got them from was not taking very good care of them. It may clear up if they are kept in a clean environment and fed a healthy diet. The one that is thin and breathing heavy may be suffering from mycoplasma which can be spread to the other rats. It can be cleared up with a course of antibiotics from a vet, but she'll always carry it, if that's what it is.

If you were wanting to breed, I wouldn't with this group. There wouldn't be any risk feeding them to your snake. Whatever is making them sickly won't affect your snakes.

With the labored breathing and showing signs of getting skinny sounds like a upper respiratory infection. I would quarintine them and treat all your rats with a round of antibiotics.

Ive recently (7 days ago) lost one of my big adult males to a respiratory infection i didnt catch until it was too late.
This is what i did immediately upon losing him, i went on a research hunt for medications rats can take & a friend told me about Tetracycline. It's technically a marine antibiotic but it can be used for rats.
I bought a box of it at petsmart for $14 & began treatment on my entire colony that night.
I dissolved 1 packet of powder in 4 1/2 cups of cool water & put 4 oz. of it in each bottle & store the rest in empty water bottles in the fridge.
Heres the thing though, light shining through a clear bottle will break down this stuff & it wont work. So i wrapped ALL the bottles & the ones in the fridge with a layer of blue masking tape (like the kind used when painting).
Each bottle has to be refreshed every day so the rats get a fresh dose daily & whats being stored in the fridge has to be used within 3 days. Treatment needs to go 14 days up to 30 if needed.
The very next day after losing my male, his sister started showing the heavy breathing & i immediately quarantined her in another room with her tubmate. I gave their bottle a sprinkle of additional tetracycline & to ease this girl's breathing trouble, i began hot steam treatments.
I placed her securely in a small kritter keeper & placed the hot water directly next to it on the outside & draped a small towel over the entire thing to where the rat inside the keeper was getting a strong dose of steam. It worked. She would've died on me as well if it had not been for the steam. This bought some time for the antibiotics to start kicking in & work on her URI.
I almost lost her.

I always suggest the tetracycline treatment for URI.

You can get a box of Tetracycline powder in the fish section of any pet store. It runs about $12 for a box of 10 packets. The dosage I use is 1 packet per 16oz water bottle. Change bottles daily or every other day. The rats will be fine after a week or 2 or treatment if the RI is still in the minor stage.

I wouldn't treat healthy rats. Just infected rats. Otherwise you're going to build up antibiotic resistance to the meds and won't be as effective when you actually do need to treat them.

And it is safe to feed rats with respiratory infections to snakes.



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I treated all of mine using a antibiotic powder from Tractor Supply. Darned if I can find it now, of course. It worked better than the two meds I got from the vet in fact(and way easier to use, since the Tractor Supply went into the water bottles and the vet meds had to be given per rat orally).

I've still got a unopened bag here SOMEWHERE. I'm sure someone in this site knows about it since this is where I got the info from.