blood around nose?

shade · Mar 2, 2008

I've had my 2 babies for about 4 weeks now and both were sneezing often and someone told me it could be either new home sneezes or a reaction to the carefresh bedding. Well, they're still sneezing and I just bought them a new super pet cage that is Carefresh bedding free. I just looked at my male Ben tonight and noticed that the edges of his nose were red like he had been bleeding from his nose at one point. I was really concerned about this and was wondering what I should do. His cagemate's nose seems fine but the both are still sneezing.

Ratmom · Mar 3, 2008

What your seeing is porphyrin & not blood. You can read more on it below or just google it.
http://www.ratballs.com/RatTails/Tails081.html
http://www.ratbehavior.org/porphyrin.htm
I would change the bedding and see if a better bedding would help. Carefresh is famous for getting rats sick.

user 78 · Mar 3, 2008

Since the bedding was already changed, and it's been 4 weeks since you've had them, I would get them into the vet. New home sneezes generally shouldn't last that long. I have a 3 Day Rule that if any symptom lasts longer than 3 days, I get them into the vet.

Excessive porphyrin is one of the first signs of illness, so getting them into your vet for a check over would give your vet a chance to listen to their lungs and see if they have a URI. Then you and your vet can decide what medications would be best for you and your kiddos.

shade · Mar 3, 2008

Alright. But with the bedding thing, they were in the cage with the carefresh for the majority of the time and I just switched them to the new cage this weekend. Ben just started showing the signs of red around his nose so maybe we could just wash his bedding and see if that works? There's no carefresh in his cage.

Oh! but we do have another sort of litter in there. I'm trying to litter train them and at petsmart they had this litter for rats, hamsters, etc and it said it was dust free. It kinda looks like little white balls. But my rats keep digging it out of the litter and then going on it. maybe it's the litter that's causing it?

jorats · Mar 3, 2008

It could also be due to the changes recently. Porphyrin is usually the symptom of stress from illness or just mental stress. If they have gone through lots of changes lately, that could do it it. Watch them for another week and if still it doesn't let up, then I would bring them to a vet.

lilspaz68 · Mar 3, 2008

Bed them down on fleece for now just to see if it helps the sneezing. I think that litter isn't a good one for rats.

shade · Mar 16, 2008

Well they were still sneezing after a week so thursday I took the both of them to the vet. The doctor suggested the receive antibiotics for 10 days (twice a day) and since they started the antibiotics they seem to sneeze a lot less. Although it's a battle in itself to give them the medicine through a syringe. They squirm and push it away, it's all quite cute. But thank you everyone for your help.