Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone know what this is, and if it is contagious? I suspect it is, because another has started bleeding from an ear.
Is there something I can do to prevent this? I bought them from the feeder store that has always sold me healthy rats in the past.
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"I am a cop, and you will respect my authoritae!"-Cartman

The presence of porphyrin, the red discharge from nose, eyes, or ears that you are seeing, is usually an indication that your rats are stressed in one way or another. It's often mistaken for blood. Sometimes the source of the stress is simply environmental in nature - new surroundings, being placed with unfamiliar cagemates, dusty bedding, etc. Often the source of the stress is an illness, usually accompanied by other symptoms.

Do you have your rats on particularly dusty bedding? Have you noticed symptoms that might indicate illness within your rats? Frequent sneezing? Wheezing? Rats that appear hunched over, or seem to be gasping while breathing?

Depending on your needs and your particular circumstances, you may choose to adjust possible environmental causes and/or "wait and see", you may choose to medicate your rats, or you may choose to feed them off and start over. Rats are highly susceptible to assorted illnesses, most of which are viral in nature and can be challenging to treat/control.

Everyone has different plans of actions when it comes to rats that show signs of illness. There are others who contribute to this forum who will have more advice.... hope this was helpful to start you off.

Rebecca
tsbabe66@hotmail.com

Thanks for the reply. The male that is discharging from the eyes has been sneezing for a couple weeks. The female discharging from the ear breathes really rapidly, and has for about a month. Both are on pine.
What can I do to help them out? If anything? I can try changing the bedding....anything else?

Thanks for the help!
Randy
>>The presence of porphyrin, the red discharge from nose, eyes, or ears that you are seeing, is usually an indication that your rats are stressed in one way or another. It's often mistaken for blood. Sometimes the source of the stress is simply environmental in nature - new surroundings, being placed with unfamiliar cagemates, dusty bedding, etc. Often the source of the stress is an illness, usually accompanied by other symptoms.
>>
>>Do you have your rats on particularly dusty bedding? Have you noticed symptoms that might indicate illness within your rats? Frequent sneezing? Wheezing? Rats that appear hunched over, or seem to be gasping while breathing?
>>
>>Depending on your needs and your particular circumstances, you may choose to adjust possible environmental causes and/or "wait and see", you may choose to medicate your rats, or you may choose to feed them off and start over. Rats are highly susceptible to assorted illnesses, most of which are viral in nature and can be challenging to treat/control.
>>
>>Everyone has different plans of actions when it comes to rats that show signs of illness. There are others who contribute to this forum who will have more advice.... hope this was helpful to start you off.
>>
>>Rebecca
>>tsbabe66@hotmail.com
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"I am a cop, and you will respect my authoritae!"-Cartman

>>Thanks for the reply. The male that is discharging from the eyes has been sneezing for a couple weeks. The female discharging from the ear breathes really rapidly, and has for about a month. Both are on pine.
>>What can I do to help them out? If anything? I can try changing the bedding....anything else?
>>
>>Thanks for the help!
>>Randy

Sounds like it is probably illness rather than environment that is causing the sneezing/poryphrin show.

This is where you'll get as many different suggestions as there are breeders out there. I can share with you what I've come to understand about rat diseases but am not a vet and can't claim to be doing anything but paraphrasing what I've learned in my own research or stating my own opinions. It all may be more than what you wanted to know, but here goes anyway. =)

Are you raising these rats as breeders? It's always an option to treat your animals, through a vet or through vet supply catalogs. As this is costly and not always successful, you may choose to simply replace the critters you have with new breeders (after disinfecting all cages, materials, etc.) However, it can be difficult to find sources that provide live rats in good health. (you did mention that you'd had good luck before when purchasing rodents from the same source - that's a good sign!)

Rats carry a virus called Mycoplasma pulmonis (I believe this is the correct spelling) regardless of whether they show symptoms or not. Often the rats are good, productive breeders for their entire lifespan without showing any (or any severe) symptoms. The only truly "clean" animals are found in labs, and even these, once removed from the sterile environment, become susceptible. Myco is carried in the respiratory tract and is easily spread from rat to rat, and I believe but am not positive that it can be carried via a host (human has contact with rats carrying myco can transmit it to healthy rats.)

Healthy rats with myco are asymptotic or minimally affected. Stress or other factors can trigger further symptoms or additional (secondary) infections. It can of course be fatal if the infection becomes pneumonia or something else that the rat cannot combat on it's own.

Treating symptoms with various antibiotics and other medications can be helpful, but it can be difficult (even for vets) to know just what it is and how to treat it. Basically, if the symptoms you're seeing are from a (secondary) bacterial infection, it is possible to treat these symptoms (but not without cost, time invested etc.) despite the general "hit or miss" approach used to determine which antibiotic is necessary. There is, of course, no cure (that I'm aware of) for the myco that is viral in nature.

It is possible to order small animal (usually pigeon) antibiotics and other types of medications from online or catelog sources - some of these meds are specifically geared toward Mycoplasma in poultry. Keep in mind that it's often costly, certainly more than the price of replacement animals. You truly would not know what sort of bacterial infection you're treating and thus wouldn't be able to assess which exact antibiotic you'd need, not to mention the difficulties with dosing, etc.

If you do choose to treat, through a vet or other means, keep in mind that antibiotic medications often interfere with normal gut flora and this can cause an animal to go off feed/water. Over-the-counter acidophilus or other pro-biotic capsules (for humans) sprinkled onto moist food has been reported to alleviate this side effect. It's my understanding that this is not something that a small animal can overdose on.

I hope this was somewhat helpful and apologize for superfluous information!
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Rebecca
TSBabe66@hotmail.com
Honored to moderate at Snakefeeders, the place to buy/sell/trade feeder animals. Come check us out! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/snakefeeders/

No need to apologize for being correct and complete.

DeMak