Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I noticed today that in one tub all the babies (about 2 weeks old) appear to have a golden yellow diarreha. The four mothers have no signs of wet-tail or any loose stool. Can anyone give me suggestions on a possible cause and cure. I am thinking of getting some Dri-tail to treat the mothers just incase but don't know if this will benefit the babies. Any help would be appreciated.

Jeff

I've had this happen before, I've always fed everything off- but wondered what caused it- anyone?

Stevo

Rotavirus is a serious infection that is highly contagious. It can be passed to humans, and I is supposedly rare in lab rats. If you only have had a few animals show these signs of diarrhea and bloating, I'm afraid that sounds more like megacolon than this rotavirus. Megacolon is a serious disease and is closely linked with the white spotting gene.
If you have added any new blood into the colony with out quarantine, then you very well could have any number of viral or bacterial infections.

This is an excellent site to read on rat illnesses and other things pertaining to rat health.
Ratguide.com

The classic signs of rotavirus infection are yellow diarrhea in fuzzy to hopper stage mice and rats, many times with drying of this material around the anal region and thus causing impactions. Some intestinal bloating may also be noticed. Another indication that this may be rotavirus is that the adults will never show symptoms, as they remain unaffected, but are carriers. I do not know of any treatment, as this is viral, and it is just usually left to run its course. You may lose some of the babies to this, but eventually it will move through the colony and the immune response of the survivors will cause these symptoms to eventually disappear after several weeks.

This is just my interpretation of your situation based on your observations. If the condition of your colony continues to deteriorate, I would definitely recommend a call to your vet.

Kelly

Thanks Kelly, from the research that i have been doing rotovirus is what I came up with as well. Haven't lost any yet and seems to be drying up in the original tub, but has now shown up in another tub. I have sanitized the entire set-up and as long as they are not dying I will just ride it out. I also order a 16oz bottle of DriTail and I am going to run that through the entire colony incase its bacterial.

Thanks Jeff

Jeff,
If it is rotavirus, there's not much you can do to stop it from moving through the colony. The upside is you are working with rats, it is harder on mouse colonies.

Kelly

I must add that the rat strain of Rotavirus is considered by some to be zoonotic. Meaning that humans can have the strains transmitted to you. Also note that the rat strain is different from the mouse strain. The mouse strain does not infect rats.
Link

Interesting subject, any idea of effectiveness of Alpha Interferon?

Sounds to me like to mother is not cleaning the babies. Most baby mammals that drink breast milk have soft yellow feces. If the mother does not lick the babies genitals then the babies can not deficate. The genitals have to be stimulated or they can not go. The mother eat/drink the pups excraments so you will not usually see it.
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Shannon in Reno
1.0 savannah monitor (Pombe-means "beer" in Swahili)
2.4 dogs
1.0 cat
5.32 rats
6.44 mice
7.50 chickens
1.2 beardies
0.1 black rat snake
~500 hissers
1 giant millipede
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
1.1 rabbits
1.0 wonderful husband

Thats what I was thinking when I saw it the first time. But it went on to effect all 32 babies. There are four moms in there that have done a great job in the past. After I started reseaching the problem I figured maybe they are smart enough not to eat it if its from a sickness. Thankfully the original babies and the dozen or so babies in another tub where it started to show up have all stopped with the diarreha as far as I can tell. I've got another 60-80 7 day old babies so I will see if it continues to spread. It started with the others at
10-14 days of age and lasted less then a week. Zero casualties so far.

Thanks for the reply, Jeff