This morning I thought one of my males "Kibbles" was going to die.

Just one week ago all our babies were weaned, and we decided to hold back one black berkshire male "Hotori Hanso" or Honso for short. We put our male Lil Pimp in with a couple of females, and introduced Kibbles and Hanso at that time. We watched them closely for a few days, and they seemed to be getting along fine. Kibbles isn't a dominate boar, and they did well togther.

Just this past Saturaday, I decided to pull Lil Pimp out of the females tub, and put him in one of his own to "cool off" for a day or so. Just last night we put him back in the community male tub with Kibbles. We let them get reacquainted, and later put Honso in as well. Everything is fine, Lil Pimp is a boar, and was keenly interested in Honso, but still nothing wrong, no scuffles, nothing.

Then I wake up this morning and go check on everyone. Kibbles isn't greeting me like usual. I pick him up and a big glob of saliva comes out of his mouth, his whole snout is red, his bottom jaw is soaked with spit, his face is swollen, and one eye looks like it had been "bleeding". He was listless and didn't move very well, just laid flopped in my arms.
I freaked. I immediately put him into a tub of his own, threw on a hot pad, cleaned up his face a little bit, but I really didn't know if it was trauma or something else. I checked out the other 2 males and they are fine, sitting there wondering why I won't give them a snuggle and hug.
I had to go to work, it's a fairly new job, I figured either I or Chris could get out of work early and take Kibbles to a vet.
I went to work, I stayed for about an hour and half. I called about 6 different Vets in the area asking if they were familiar with fancy rats and diagnostics. One Vet office about 30 minutes away said they could see him if I got there in 30 minutes. I made it in 18.
The vet looked him over, asked what kind of bedding I use, if any new rats were introduced to the colony from an outside source, and if he has any pre-existing health problems. Kibbles does have very sensitive allergies, and we don't use aspen or any chips any more because of the dust.
She rules out trauma on the spot, listens to his chest, give's him a look over and tells me (thankfully) that he has a bad sinus infection. THANK HEAVEN!
She prescribed him Baytril for 10 days, and if it doesnt work, I will take him back in for baytril and some other one I can't remember the name.
She told me to put him in strict quarantine, and to pull the other 2 males out of the colony and keep a close eye on them as well. Hopefully they will be okay.
So now I'm sitting here, smell like bleach and vinegar and writing to you. Don't buy rats from pet stores.

He is one of 6 rats I bought from the same pet store. One dumbo female whos jaw that is not aligned, making her teeth curve outwards and never get worn down. She will not be breed even if we do decide to keep her as a pet. Her litter sister has it to a degree, but not anything threatening.
That same dumbo with the jaw disorder also has chronic respiratory problems. To the point you can hear her almost coughing.
Another animal I got from them is overweight, although we have it under control now.
Another animal I got from them doesn't have any medical problems, but she is a blue blazed animal. I don't know if she should be breed for raising pups, I'm pretty sure I wont keep any of her litters.

I bought all these animals fairly young, and all seemed very healthy. I also didn't know a thing about rats other than they were my snake food. So a word of caution, know who your buying rats from.