need urgent help here

[ballpythonluvr]

I got three rats from my local rat guy last night. He said they are weaned rats as that is what I asked for. I fed one of them off last night but now I am left with two babies. They are very small and they will not eat or drink. I tried giving them some soy baby formula as that is what I found out from trying to do a little research. I do realize that the chances for survival are slim at this point. Is there anything I can do to help these rats? I asked my rat guy what to do and he does not have a clue. The eyes are open on these rats. They will not accept the formula when I try to feed them with a syringe or when I leave it out in a shallow little bowl.

[Sammy412]

You need to use puppy milk replacer, it's called esbilac and you can get it from a vet. You want to offer it in a small syringe, like a 1cc or 3cc syringe. It sometimes takes a few feeds for them to get the hang of it.

[tonkatoyman]

If your rat supplier thinks this a wiener needs milk I think you might need a new rat supplier. A weened rat by definition does not require milk but solid food. They generally measure 3" in length and do quite well on their own.

[ballpythonluvr]

You need to use puppy milk replacer, it's called esbilac and you can get it from a vet. You want to offer it in a small syringe, like a 1cc or 3cc syringe. It sometimes takes a few feeds for them to get the hang of it.

Thank you for the advice. I got the formula and was able to get them to take a little bit.

[chaoticstone]

Thank you for the advice. I got the formula and was able to get them to take a little bit.

I had a girl refuse to eat a pinky/fuzzy rat (live is hard to find here so if they have something I would get it) My wife bottle feed it for about 3 weeks....if their eyes are open you can mix the formula and baby food together. You have to kind of train them to eat it (Since normally mom would still be feeding them). I would put some on my pinky and scrape it across her teeth. It took a few times but she got the hang of it. One other thing we did to give her more substance before she was totally weaned was mix the baby food in with the formula but still running enough to use the syringe. She just gave birth to her first litter today, she had a whopping 14 babies. Hopefully she is a good mom since she didn't really have one. So since you said their eyes are open it shouldn't be that long before they are eating on their own.