Rat with possible respiratory infection?

TheJadeRat · Mar 11, 2011

So my friend just got a large female rat a few days ago. She was at pet store, where she was to become snake food. The pet store had her on pine shavings with a bowl and a water bottle.
She has brownish mucus coming out of it's nostrils. She is breathing rapidly, heart beat is a little fast, a little thin, breathing sounds like a clicking noise, and when she sneezes clear liquid shoots out. She is completely active, crawls all over the cage, eats normal, drinks normal, and has normal bowel and bladder movements. She also doesn't know how to run a wheel, but she tried too. My friend's mother said we could take her to the vet, but not until she gets paid at the first of April. Also, we contacted the vet, but they don't allow people to make payment plans. So here is our questions:

She is very clingy. Is that normal?

When my friend first got her, we thought the breathing was her just freaking out. Maybe?

We let her settle in for a few days. But it got somewhat worse.

Is there anything we can do until then? Make her as comfortable as possible? Anything? Will a some steam help her breath?

~Thanks for reading. And my friend says thank you!

victoria · Mar 11, 2011

Some steam may help, but if she's getting worse April 1st will likely be too late. Is there any way your friend can get the money to take her to the vet? She may be clingy because she's alone or because she's very ill. What type of habitat is she in? Bedding? A humidifier, keeping her in a very clean cage, steam, healthy foods, and probiotics can all help, but she still needs a vet.

jorats · Mar 11, 2011

The discharge in her nose is called porphyrin which usually occurs due to some kind of stress either illness or even the change in homes.
Clingy can be normal especially in rats living alone.
Have your friend hold the rat up to her ear and listen to the lungs, what does she hear? it should be a very light swoosh or better yet, hardly any sound at all.
Like Victoria has mentioned, if she does have a respiratory infection, April 1st is much too late.

ametropia · Mar 11, 2011

My sneezy-girl was the same way. Active, eating, playing, sleeping.. but had clicking-sounds in her breathing. When holding her up to my ear, I heard nothing but normal sounds, and yet she was sneezing (wet sneezes) and had the clicking sound which was like a nasal-based sound.

If you can't hear it in the lungs, that doesn't mean she doesn't have an RI -- she might have an upper respiratory infection which is more in the nasal passages / upper air-way.

When I took ours into the vet, she did in fact have a URI, and she's been on meds for a week now and is showing a complete turn-around.

However, two days before we took her to the vet, she dramatically became worse and actually showed signs of being unable to breathe -- gasping / hiccup-motion / loud noises in breathing. This prompted us to abandon our plan to take her to a particular vet on saturday and re-schedule with a closer very for the wednesday. I'm glad we did because if we had have waited any longer, I sort of fear what could have happened..

Our girl was also primarily kept on pine shavings at a pet store, and in a tank, and more than likely this probably contributed to the problem. We're lucky all four didn't have issues, only one did.

When you say "her freaking out," you do have a point there -- stress can cause excess porphyrin and lead to sneezes. But not in the capacity you're talking about, and it wouldn't account for long-term clicking-noises in the breathing. It also would not account for the breathing progressively getting worse. [When I have to give ours her meds, she still sneezes once or twice because she's stressing -- but as soon as it's over with, she settles down and her symptoms disappear.]

It sounds as though the rat may have a respiratory infection of some kind and should be seen by a vet. April 1 is too far away, the rat needs to be taken to the vet asap. You mentioned it got somewhat worse -- and it's only going to continue to do so. Infections don't generally just get better on their own, they require the proper medication to push the infection from the body.

If there's a credit card, I suggest it gets used to get the animal to the vet. I normally don't push people to use credit, but in a case like this, you gotta do what you gotta do. When we took Mrs. Brisby to the vet, I paid a total of about $140 I think for her full examine and two medications.

TheJadeRat · Mar 11, 2011

Thanks everyone! I will have to talk to my dad see if he can loan her the money.

Update on her. She came up to my friend today. And this morning she bulged her eyes and vibrated them.

We both put her up to our ears and today it sounds like squeaking. She seems to have got better. She was doing a hiccup motion, but she isn't doing it as frequently today.

P.S. I'm sorry. Didn't know what to call the motion she was doing.

ametropia · Mar 11, 2011

I don't know what to call it either, ours did the hiccuping motion as well :lol:

One way or another, it is an indication of a breathing difficulty. Sometimes, sneezing and excess porphyrin and breathing troubles can be caused by an environment change, or allergies. So what you want to observe if she's getting better is if anything in the environment is different (a lack of perfumes or smoking or other scents or other pets), and if not, if you continue to see an improvement, you might get lucky that the rat is just reacting to her new environment.

If it is an environment-change type of situation, it should clear up fairly quickly, so if it keeps persisting, it probably isn't. It can, however, still be allergies as one alternative to RI.. but rats are so prone to RI it's just best to eliminate that as the problem usually.

I'm not sure about hearing the squeaking in the lungs.. that itself seems to say "respiratory infection" to me, but I could be totally off on that. I'm the overly-cautious type and I'd bring the rat to the vet regardless.. any rat that comes from a pet-store needs a vet-check IMO, because most pet stores keep inappropriate conditions that do lead to illness.

So if you can find a way to afford to take her in, it's best to get her in for a once-over. If not, I guess all you can do is keep a close eye on her. If there's any indication of her getting worse, you gotta act fast that's the only thing.. The bad thing about RI is that it can sort of progress really fast sometimes.. ours was showing mild symptoms one day, and severe symptoms the next to the point where I was here in tears with my husband and we weren't sure what to do and we thought she wasn't going to make it to the vet appointment. Things can change fast.. so if you can come up with money for the vet appointment, don't refuse it: either use it, or put it aside for the future, because rats do have these amazingly delicate respiratory systems and it is very common to have to treat for RI.

Edit: one thing we did for our girl on the day she was having severe difficulty and we really couldn't do much until the next day, is I calculated out the correct dose of Benadryl for her and gave her some of that. It gave her some relief.. It sort of just calmed her down.. our girl could sleep just fine so it helped her just lie down and rest and be in a calm state. There are charts out there and people in here who can help you calculate the dosage, which is normally based on weight plus some calculations regarding the amount of drug in the Benadryl. If you're good at math you can figure it out fairly easy by available information out there (like this).

It is not something you should do on an ongoing long-term basis without consulting with a vet in my opinion, but if it is an emergency, she might find some relief in it for a day until you can get her in to see someone. It is not in any way a replacement for vet care though, and as always when giving any medication to a rate, you are taking risks (though you have to calculate the risks against the problem at hand, and sometimes those risks are worth it)