Rat Health

This is in no way an attempt to create a comprehensive health care guide. We aren't vets, we just spend a lot of time (and money) at our vet's office...and unfortunately that is because there are a lot of health problems possible with rats.

Before I adopted rats, I assumed they were hardy critters. After all, they seem to be ubiquitious in the world, along with cockroaches. I have since learned that in the wild, the life of a rat is most likely nasty, brutish, and short. They are only ubiquitous because they are such prolific breeders. In a loving home, a pet rat will enjoy a live that's lavish, spoiled...and sadly, often still too short.

This page documents our experiences with a variety of health problems and how we, with our vet's guidance, treated them. If I can give only one piece of advice to a new rat owner, it is get a good vet. Experience treating rats is good (I was quite pleased when our vet picked up Rizzo for the first time and said "These are my favorite of the pocket pets"), but so is a willingness to research and listen to what you've learned on your own.

Blood...or porphyrin

Almost immediately upon bring Rizzo and Krycek home I started seeing red stains in their bedding. My first assumption was, of course, blood, although I didn't see any wounds on either of them. I hit the search engines and found that rats produce porphyrin, a red discharge, around their eyes and nose, particularly when they are ill or stressed. The question of what caused the red stains was quickly answered: I woke up one day to such quantities of red, not just on the bedding but on the walls behind the cage, that it was clearly blood. The rats, cage and all, went directly to the vet for our first panicked emergency visit. He found very small nicks on both rats, either scratches or bites, and that began the days of separate cages for the girls.

I am still not completely sure how to tell the difference between blood stains and porphyrin stains. I think that the porphyrin is lighter (looks maybe like watered-down blood) and when we've seen porphyrin staining, it's usually a fine mist pattern from a rat's sneeze.

Lumps

Rats, female rats in particular, are prone to tumors. I'd read that plenty of times, so when Rizzo developed a pea-sized lump near her jaw, I figured it was a tumor. Another vet trip. The vet removed the lump, but in this case it wasn't a tumor, it was an abscess.

Abscesses occur when pus collects at the site of an infection. The abscess is actually the body's way of containing the infection so it doesn't spread, but it doesn't always work, and a burst abscess can spread the infection dangerously through the body. An abscess can be red or feel warm to the touch, and if it does open there is generally a foul odor. In most cases, treatment for an abscess involves draining the pus, careful cleaning, and antibiotics. In Rizzo's case, the vet removed the entire unopened abscess so further draining wasn't necessary. Calle, though, had one that we didn't discover as a lump, we thought he had a bite wound. In his case the vet left the wound open so it would drain. He had three medications: the systemic antibiotic, a solution to flush the wound twice a day, and a topical ointment like Neosporin.

Rizzo and Krycek did both develop the tumors eventually, though. Coincidentally, the first lumps appeared almost simulaneously, Krycek's on her shoulder and Rizzo's in her abdomen. Both girls had surgery. Krycek recovered uneventfully, but Rizzo chewed her sutures out overnight. On the second try the vet gave her internal sutures, which caused a little irritation but at least they kept the wound close.

To keep a rat from chewing out the stitches you can use a collar, but you have to make sure the rat is still able to drink, and you'll probably need to help her eat. I've never gone that route myself. Other people have had success using a body stocking to cover the stitches. On subsequent surgeries with our rats the vet has used combination of internal and external sutures. Rats do heal up quickly, luckily, and Rizzo is the only one who has needed multiple trips for restitching.

Krycek wasn't even through her two-week post-op antibiotic course when I found another lump. By this time she was two years old or perhaps older, and she looked so miserable with the stitches and the medicine that I decided not to put her through more surgery. The vet advised that the lump would grow and probably more tumors would show up as well, and that once the tumors were large enough to impair her quality of life we'd have to put her to sleep. It was not an easy decision to make. However, the lump did not grow as fast as I had feared, and even when two more tumors grew on her chest, she really didn't seem affected by them. Eventually she did need a ramp to get to her upper shelf in her cage, but as she got older I couldn't tell if her decreased mobility was because of the lumps or her age. She lived another seven months with the tumors. I had to put her to sleep when the abdominal tumor ulcerated and began to bleed, but even on the morning of the last vet trip she was eating yogies from my hand a building nests with the tissue paper in her cage. Rizzo's course was similar, multiple abdominal tumors. She was also put to sleep; her largest tumor began to turn black and I didn't want it to open like Krycek's did. And in Rizzo's case, two nights before going to the vet, my ever-active and exploring girl did not want to leave my lap. Never had she elected to spend an evening curled up with me instead of doing her own thing, and I felt like it was her way of telling me goodbye.

Choking

One evening I was working on the computer when I heard a cough from Rizzo's cage. I looked up to see foamy liquid coming from her mouth. The noise she made and the stuff from her mouth looked for all the world like a dog about to vomit, but rats don't vomit. I'd heard that little tidbit for years before I had rats. As usual, this happened several hours after the vet closed, so I went to the Panicked Internet Search...where I found, and fairly quickly, instructions for assisting a choking rat.

Here's what happened...apparently Riz had something caught in her throat. Luckily she was breathing, I could see her chest move and she was not turning blue. But if she'd stopped breathing, I was getting ready to perform what's known as the "ratty fling" to dislodge whatever was stuck. Here is Debbie "The Rat Lady" Ducommun's description from the Rat Fan Club First Aid page:

Hold your rat firmly around the neck with one hand, and by the base of the tail with the other to hold her securely. Make sure there are no objects within an arm's length. Lift the rat overhead and bring her down in a rapid arc, so that at the end of the path she's tail up and head down. This can be repeated 3-4 times, then give the rat a rest, check her breathing, and see if anything is visible in the mouth. This is extremely effective in dislodging objects in the throat. However, do not use this procedure if your rat can breathe, or you might make it worse.

I'm not sure what she choked on, either. It must have been a piece of her rat food mix, and she was eating too fast. I have seen warnings to avoid very soft and sticky foods like peanut butter and soft bread, though, because they are choking hazards.

Scabs

Spaying and Neutering

Seizures

Respiratory Infections

Lice and Mites

Euthenasia