The Rat Room

All rats secrete an oil on their skin called sebum. In the rat community we call that buck grease as it’s way more common on males. This usually occurs when the male is very hormonal or is feeling a general malaise and has stopped grooming himself. This is not a sign of bugs or high protein, it’s too much oil secretion. You could gently clean your rat but constant bathing will actually make him produce more buck grease. Giving your little guy some olive oil once in a while can help him keep a cleaner, shinier coat.

Rats are very agile and fast but once in a while they move a certain way when they shouldn’t and they end up hurting their legs. A sprained leg is very common and not much of a concern although you must keep an eye on it in case an infection develops.
A typical sprained leg or bruised leg will swell up really big. But within 3 days the swelling should go down and the rat be back to his normal self.
Keeping the rat quiet and immobile will speed up his recovery. Some people will remove their rat from the colony cage to put in a hospital cage, this is ok to do so long as it does not create any new stress to the rat. Stress can completely halt recovery, in fact, it can make things a lot worse. So if you think rattie is happier in his current cage, then leave him be.
If you can sense that he’s in a lot of pain: stops eating, zones out, sleeps all the time, then it would be wise to get him a prescription of metacam from your vet.
Things to watch for, excessive swelling that doesn’t go down in a week, severe discoloration and lethargy. This could be an infection such as cellulitis which requires a vet check.