Treat Respiratory Infections?

[steveboos]

I have built up a collection of 9 rats and feeders, i've just had 2 females give birth and a 3rd about to give birth. I got all my rats from either a healthy place or a good breeder and none had any sneezes or symptons of anything. I know rats have Mycoplasma in their blood when their born and its not really a problem till something triggers it. I know the rats were stressed out when i brought them here, but just in the last week i noticed my male siamese start to wheeze and sneeze. I immediately used some ferret respiratory medication on his nose when i first saw it. Now I hear sneezes everywhere and i'm really starting to worry. The medication i have for the respiratory infections says i can put it in a humidifier to help heal through breathing it normally. I just now set it up in my humidifier and will hopefully see an improvement.

I will say that the male that was wheezing VERY bad is now just slightly sneezing, so i hope that i can help heal these problems before all my rats sneeze and get bacterial respiratory infections. Any help would be greatly appreciated as i do not want to take every rat to the vet to get charged $800 for a minor non-life threatening problem.

[Nevadamoon]

A vet visit + meds wouldn't be that much, (Depending on your vet and the amount of meds needed it would probably be under $80.) but most vets prescribe either doxycycline or baytril for sniffles/respiratory infections. A cheap way to treat it at home is to buy a product called "Bird Biotic" and put it in the water. It'd be best to ask a vet for the proper dosing, but it's better then doing nothing.

http://www.agmahs.com/product/DOXYTL100

Doxy is safe in young/nursing rats, but it's not a good idea to give it to a pregnant rat.

[bokuza]

It sounds like your one male developed a URI to a flare up and infected the others. A Vet is the way to go. Since you only have 9 you can maybe take 1 rat in and ask for double bottles of the meds. You can try having them in a steamy room to help loosen the fluids but it won't cure them.

[steveboos]

I work at PetSmart so i'll talk to some of my friends over at Banfield and see if i can get a bottle of Trimeth and start treating the respiratory infections. I know that rats can live fine with one, but i definitely want to treat it before it gets too bad.