Need Help with Unhealthy and Unhappy Rat

[RaT*DaNcE]

I have a very sickly almost 2 year old rat, and I have no idea what to do. His name is Flikker, and I have known him since he was 2 days old, born to a rat of a friend of mine. I took home him and his brother Buzz who were the best of friends, doing everything together until a couple months ago when Buzz passed away. Flikker had always been the healthy most confident one, but when Buzz died he became depressed and wouldn't even go near the place where he and Buzz would sleep together, choosing the bottom of the cage instead. He didn't eat much and started getting uncomfortably thin, as he had always been the biggest, chunkiest of the litter with a gorgeous chubby boy body any rat parent would be proud of.

The first illness Flikker got was a devastating case of mites which almost sucked him dry and left him weaker than ever. We got rid of them and washed and bleached or threw away anything he had been in contact with, but the mites came back. They come back about every month now, even after the vet gave him a shot. It lasted longer than the other treatments, but not long enough. We were told to just come back for the shot every time he got them again. During this time his breathing got hoarse and so loud it was hard to sleep at night when I brought him into my room so I could keep an eye on him. His front side was stained a ruddy reddish-brown from constantly trying to wipe the gunk from his eyes and nose, and he sounded like he was breathing underwater. His whole body shook with every breath and it looked like it took almost all his energy just to keep breathing. The vet took a full-body X-ray of Flikker but still "didn't really know" what he had. She said it might be bronchitis and gave us medication to give him through a syringe 2 times a day.

I still give Flikker his medication, but it has done absolutely nothing and his breathing is as bad as ever. He is still skinny even though we have offered him almost every edible item in the house and many of which he had previously loved, but he will only pick at them and eat a tiny bit. Between all his illnesses we have not been able to get another rat buddy for him for fear that he will just pass on his mites or respiratory problem to them. Once right after his first shot and when the mites were gone, Flikker and I had a "sleepover" at my friend's house where his aunt and sister live. We introduced them since they had not seen each other in a very long while, and both females were infertile. At first they just ignored him, but then he quietly and sweetly snuck into their hearts as unobtrusively and easily he had everyone else's, both man and beast. My friend didn't have an extra cage so we nervously made a little separate nest for him on a different floor of his aunt's and sister's cage, hoping they wouldn't be too territorial. They were both fine, and in the morning we found that his nest had been dragged all the way down to the girl rats' nest, and he was sleeping in the middle of a sleeping pile of rats with I swear happy little grin on his face.

Flikker is a very social rat and a lover not a fighter. Buzz would sometimes pick fights with other rats, but Flikker never did and just stayed away and ignored any fight Buzz got into. He was so happy that one night when he got to stay with rats for the first time since his brother left him, I have never seen him happier. Now he is back at the house and just as sickly and unhappy as ever, and I really want to change that but I don't know how. Does anyone know of a really great (better) rat vet near Santa Clara, California? His vet was at Adobe Animal Hospital. I love him so much and I have no idea what to do, especially since the vet isn't even sure what he really has and he is suffering for it. I would also like any ideas for foods that will fatten him up, put some meat on his bones. I am going so crazy I want to just feed him plain fat. Ah well, he probably wouldn't eat it anyway.

Thanks if you have gotten this far in my extremely long message (sorry about that), and if you have any suggestions/tips on fattening him up, getting rid of mites for good, finding a better rat vet, or finding some way for him to be with the rat species that he loves without infecting them, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

[JR1030]

Sorry, I did skim your post, but for mites, Revolution seems to be the best thing...you can just re-treat every month.  Mites are known to come in on bedding, so if you buy bedding like aspen or carefresh, they could be on that.  You can freeze all your bedding for 48 hours, or switch to fleece which you can just wash.  Nutrical, Nutristat, Ensure, baby food, olive oil, avocado all are good for putting some weight on a sick or skinny rat.  When you have a lone older guy, some people recommend introducing (slowly) two younger rats, so that when the older guy passes, the young guys will still have each other.

[Wayward Wat Wescuer]

I have something I feed to my rats, especially my older one, that is suffering with lung disease.  he actually has gained a few ounces, even my 8 yr old grandson noticed the differance.  just make some baby oatmeal cereal, mixed with soy baby formula, almost runny, but with some body to it.   add a small can of good canned catfood, and about 1/2 cup of yougurt.  i use plain, but any flavored yogurt is fine.   my folks love it.  i give it to all mine, and ill tell you, the healthy ones fur has shown soooo much differance, they are soooooo soft now.    i sometimes put applesauce in it, mash up bananas, anything, but this is a staple in all my rats daily food now.   its doing all sorts of good things with my furry family, i hop it works well with yours.   

[RaT*DaNcE]

Thank you so much, especially for the fattening foods! The baby food sounds great, is there any specific flavor your rats have taken a special liking too? Flikker is just so picky I think I'd need something pretty fantastic for him to eat a lot of it. I will start using the Revolution which I just found out my friend is using with her girls (Flikker's sister and aunt) and says it is working great for her.

Since (hopefully) I don't have to worry about the mites anymore, I have started looking at young male rats from North Star Small Animal Rescue and have found 9 possible candidates! Also Flikker will be staying with my friend and his sister and aunt for 10 days when I go to Hawaii and she has written down the foods to give him, promising that he'll be plumper than ever by the time I get back.

I'll miss my squishy little boy but I know he'll be ecstatic to spend such a long time with his family/friends. Thanks again!

[Dearpie]

Awwww I hope your boy gains weight and gets new  friends!  Like JR said, Revolution works great.  One drop behind his ear and he's good for 30 days!   As for fattening foods, avocado, oatmeal, scrambled eggs and other (high protein) such items work great. One that I swear by is either Boost or Ensure.  My crew loves the vanilla flavor, while others swear by strawberry.

Regarding Flikker spending time with his aunt and sister, I REALLY hope either he's neutered or the girls are spayed, otherwise there will be two litters on the way.   

Another thought on his illness is that he could have some sort of infection that requires antibiotics.  I wonder about this since he's had such a difficult time with the mites.  It wouldn't hurt to put him through a round of baytril, just in case.  If you can't get rid of mites, this is often the case.

Either way, keep us posted and have a great time in Hawaii!     Aloha!

[RaT*DaNcE]

Great, vanilla and strawberry, I'll remember that. I fed Flikker some hard boiled egg but he just took a taste and left the rest. I haven't tried them scrambled yet though, so I'll see if that works.

No, there is definitely no chance of Flikker getting his sister and aunt pregnant, we made sure of that! That is actually how Flikker was born and probably part of the reason his immune system doesn't seem to be doing so well.

Before she knew better, my friend had gotten his mother and her sister, his aunt, from a pet store at 8 weeks old. She noticed his mother, Luna, getting fatter every day and her stomach start kind of wiggling, and soon after out popped 8 little munchkins. The pet store apologized, saying she was probably left with her brother too long, and offered to take all the pups. Luckily, my friend was smarter by then and declined that offer.

All of the pups got carefully screened new homes, and Buzz and Flikker came with me while my friend kept the runt, a gorgeous little girl named Zoe along with the mother and aunt. His mother has since passed away, just leaving the 2 girls.

Baytril sounds like a good idea, I hadn't thought of that what with all his other medications. There probably is some reason why the mites keep coming back when we thought we killed them all.

Thanks, I'll keep you posted! Hopefully he'll be a new rat (or the one he used to be) soon, with all the fantastic help I've gotten.

[wonderrodent]

Sorry to hear that your Flikker was heartbroken and got so sick 
Definitely change the vet! I hope you'll be able to find a good one. If there is no improvement after about 4-5 days or so with antibiotics, you have to try different ones. Your vet should have known that. What did he put Flikker on?
Flikker might have pneumonia. Since his breathing sounds so bad you could even try a combo of doxy/Baytril/Metacam or doxy/Zithromax and treat it aggressively for several weeks. In addition, you can also use a nebulizer with meds in it and treat him 2-3 times a day.
I don't quite understand how you could be sure that the girls can't get pregnant/are infertile??
Weren't you worried that his aunt and sister get sick? That's a huge risk.

The reoccurring mites might have contributed to his health problems (can weaken the immune system). What kind of bedding do you use?

You can search (search bar on top) for posts about "hiding" meds in different kinds of food. This topic comes up pretty often since some of the meds are so nasty tasting.

Anyway, good luck and  to your sweetie.

[RaT*DaNcE]

I don't know how stupid this may sound, but in the books I read before getting rats they mentioned that female rats' litters started dwindling when they are around 10 months of age, and by around 15 months they cannot conceive. Both the girls were over 2 years old and I was desperate.... not good at thinking when the boy I've loved almost since birth wouldn't move from one corner of one level of the cage out of depression.

When we introduced them, Flikker had gotten his shot for mites a week ago and was clean, and his symptoms seemed to be clearing up, only a snuffle now and then. All he seemed was skinny and depressed. All I wanted and want to do is make him happy, and the thing that makes him most happy is other rats. He'll even touch noses with the guinea pigs through the cage when he's out, but that doesn't really cut it.

I even let him sleep on top of my pillow beside my head at night. He has a good sized box with food, water, treats, and a nest area which is, in a form, his "travel" cage; when he is out of his cage, it's in whatever room he is in as his little home-away-from home. I keep it on the night table beside my bed at night to keep an eye on him, but he has been nudging the box and making longer and longer flying leaps to reach his favorite spot on my pillow, and I can't bare to put him back since so few things make him happy. I'm whipped by the squishy rat boy.

As for his bedding, I use Carefresh for the bottom layer of the cage and towels/washcloths, rags, baby diapers, and even cut up jeans on the wire levels.

He went to the vet today again for another shot since he just got his mites back, and we asked about Revolution. The vet said she had never heard about it before, but it sounded like a good idea. She gave us one tube along with all the necessary syringes and measurements and told us we would only need to treat him once and he'd be good. You have to apply it every month though, right? I'm pretty sure, just want to check seeing as almost everyone on this forum is a better [rat] vet than her.

We are looking for another vet, but I know there is at least one good one in the hospital, the one who treated my friend's rats. I just need to look for "the one with, like, a paw bracelet tattoo around her wrist." She brought my friend's rat back from almost dead to glowing, so I'm hopeful.

Our vet also said that once what we thought were dead mites or the scabs from mites was dry skin. Flikker's skin is spotted with tiny reddish brown scabs. Hopefully this will be the last care question I have for my boy, but how do I calm his skin down? Should I just give him foods healthy for his coat, like the yummy concoction Wayward Wat Wescuer described, or should I also rub him down with something like vegetable oil which I've heard on this forum also doubles to deter mites?

As you've probably noticed, not so good at the short replies, I'll work on that.

[Heatherama]

Mites can definately come in Carefresh.  Freezing will do away with them, but if you don't have a large freezer, then you could just switch to towels, fleece, or whatever on the bottom level also.  I went to Goodwill a couple days ago and got 45 baby blankets for $1 each!     Gonna figure out a way to velcro them down so they don't chew them all up.

he may have a resp. infection due to the stress of losing his buddy.     You could also feed him some Nutrical.  It's a high calorie supplement that you can find in the cat or dog health area of a pet store.  Not sure what it tastes like, but the animals go nuts for it.  That might pep him up a bit.  Poor little guy, I'm sorry he's feeling so bad.

[lilspaz68]

Your old girls still have a chance at pregnancy.  The norm is that they start going through a version of menopause at 18 months BUT each rat is different and we have no way of knowing when they are actually infertile, and a 2 year old female getting pregnant is highly dangerous to the ratgirl and could easily kill her.

Injections (ivermectin I assume) often don't work well...Revolution is a one-time-only treatment if you freeze your bedding or wash their fabric in very hot water to kill any buggies to prevent reinfestation.

the red flakes could be buck grease and you can give him a crust with some olive oil on it once a week to see if it helps control that problem.

[Vibrissa]

A natural cure for mites (and it realllly works) when the chemicals wouldn't for my rats

One of my rats has gotten mites most all of her life.  I no longer use bedding, except for sheets over towel on the floor--and soft cut up sweatshirt rags for them to carry around and making other bedding spots (it doesn't unravel like towels do).  I disinfected the cage every week or more, I used Ivermectin (but didn't like giving the poison monthly--but tried it, but she still had mites), used the kitten Revolution (didn't like doing that), fed neem leaf powder to them in their food (suppose to get rid of mites and other pests--and DOES totally keep dogs flea and tick free and prevents yeast ear infections on dogs)--but NONE of it ever worked.  She was always still itching and scratching and had scabs on her.  I felt so sorry for her.  The above did keep them "down" so that she didn't get anemic or sick with them, but she was miserable and I was tired of watching her suffer.  Finally, since I use food quality diatomaceous earth to prevent roaches in our house (and it totally works), I decided to take some of it on my fingers--but not a lot as I didn't want to create a cloud of dust that it can do and then cause respiratory problems--so just a tiny bit mashed onto my finger and rub it onto Undot's scabs, back, belly, and privates area.  It is actually good for us when applied and totally kills fleas, bugs, ticks, mites, and other pests.  I did this each day for about a week.  She never got resp problems (because I was careful not to put that much on her)--it is also totally safe and actually good for them and us if they lick it off and eat it--de-worms and has other health benefits, and she has now been free (after 2 years) of mites, itching, and scabs for over 2 months.  YEA--just wanted to pass it on.  But BE CERTAIN you get "food quality" and not the other that is for swimming pools--for the NON-FOOD DE has chemicals that are poisonous added and will kill.

[chiropteragirl]

Oh, I didn't know that diatomaceous earth works on rat mites! I knew it worked on chicken mites, but not that it did anything for mites.

Does it work for lice, too?

[lilspaz68]

I tried it for lice once, did nothing for my itchy rats.  I was just trying to get them through the weekend to their Revolution treatment.

[Vibrissa]

Well, it totally worked for my Undot--I just did it carefully for 1 week, and she has never had them again.  But I think mine had mites and not lice.   Sherry