Prayer for Radar please

Well my male Fancy rat Radar is sick, I noticed it tonight when I went to handle him and he was still sleeping. He has a bloody nose and that really scared me so I called the girl that bread him and she told me that he has caught a cold of some sort and needs to be seen by a vet so he is going tomorrow if he makes it thru the night he looks in bad shape.

Has he been stressed out lately? The red stuff is called porphyrin, and is just a discharge(our's is clear, their's is reddish-orange). Make sure the vet puts him on Baytril. The injectable Baytril given orally works better than anything, and will need to be given to him for a week to 10-days to fully clear him up. He may have a little sneezing afterwards though which is normal. When the Baytril is injected, there is sometimes an injection-site reaction, so that's why I recommended giving the injectable stuff orally. It works better anyhow. My rat, Sneezy, was on the injectable stuff, weighed around 400+- grams, and was given .03ml twice a day for a week. I mixed this in coconut pudding baby food(found at HEB/WalMart), and he took it wonderfully everytime. If you can, give him some yogurt with the meds so he can build up good intestinal flora since the antibiotics gets rid of all bacteria, even the good stuff. The yogurt will help.

Let us know how it goes, and please tell the vet about the injectable Baytril. It just works so much better than the oral stuff, and is usually cheaper. Good luck to him.

thanks Becky, I will let him know. I dont think he has been stressed out he is a real personable Rat when I walk in the room he is up on the glass wanting out when I put my hand in to get him he comes willingly and climbs aboard.

Good luck with the vet! Hope Radar is feeling better real soon and let us know how it went of course!

Hope Radar is feeling better. How long has the red discharge been present? Is he showing any other signs of illness? Sometimes this discharge can be present from issues such as a bedding change, new food reaction, build up of ammonia if you use a glass enclosure (it just doesn't "breathe" as well even if the cage is kept clean), or stress from a cage mate or a move of housing. It is not usually true blood (they can check under a UV light as porphyrin is flourscent under UV light).

We had this issue with our older male rat Kracker just last month. Tears and slightly reddish nasal discharge but nothing else apparent. It seemed to be related to a conflict between Kracker and Rocky our other male rat who is a bit younger and was being a bit aggressive to Kracker (dominance thing I think). We seperated them for a few days then gradually reintroduced them. Kracker sorted Rocky out about who is boss of the boy's cage. The red discharge disappeared and has not come back so we are pretty confident it was stress related.

Let us know how Radar is doing please.


~~Jo~~

well he was in the same condition this morning, but passed away sometime after I left for work. The discharge happend with in 12 hours of bedding change but I thought nothing of it since its the same ol'e stuff I have always kept him on. My female is doing jsut fine and showing no signs of any problems other than a big belly of babies on the way. They where to be feeders but now im not sure I can feed off radars babies.

I'm so sorry. Poor little guy. Maybe one of his babies will remind you of him, so you can have a new buddy :)

Rats can go downhill very quickly, and usually, if something isn't done rapidly after onset, the illness is fatal.

I'm so sorry to hear about Radar. Good luck with the babies, and be sure to keep a close eye on everyone for awhile.

Oh I'm so sorry to hear about Radar passing away. It's amazing how bonded we get with these lil furry beasties.


~~Jo~~

I'm really sad to hear about that. I used to think of rats as just feeders, but recently I am becoming really attached to a few so I know how dear they can be to ya.
I am glad to hear that your female is doing good though.