Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am a moderate breeder. Been doing it for about a year and a half now.I keep trying to get on "pet rat" forums for info and as soon as they figure I am a feeder breeder they freak and black ball me.I keep getting tilt head now and again. I have heard whirling disease, ear infections, and tumors.does anyone have a good online source for disease info for rats?

tilting heads is probably due to upper respiratory infection.

There is plenty of online medical info for rats, try a google search. rmca.org is a good source, as well as many others.

As for the pet rat forums, the trick is to never let on that you do ANY breeding whatsoever. None. They are all psychotically opposed to breeding. Also of course never mention any snakes or reptiles but that seems to be okay on some forums as long as you only feed frozen MICE and never ever feed live or breed anything. But its better of course to just not even mention snakes or other reptiles.

Nice post. I was on one pet rat forum for years and helped SO many people out. I never mentioned that I bred for food because my breeders are pets but when I did all hell broke loose and I got kicked off and got nasty emails. Nevermind how many rats I helped save. Oh well.

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Shannon in Reno
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
Bunch O fancy rats and mice
50 something chickens
0.1 Black rat snake
0.2 Albino corn snakes
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
0.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend

Yea Maybe I'll start that thread.... WHo's been lynched on the pet forum... LOL

I don't think that it is upper resperatory, They are breathing fine. I have seen and watched die upper resp. rats. This is always on one side of the head that they tilt, If you pick them up by the tail, they spin in circles. It's almost too fast acting to be tumors. There are some sights out there i just need to find them. The pet people will pay hundreds to fix there rats. We toss them. I'd like a happy medium.

I've had only a few within three years that's developed a tilting head and they were all females. I've no clue as to what caused it but I allowed one to live, instead of feeding it off, as an experiment and it seemed to have lived a healthy, normal life other than the head tilt.

Thinking in human terms, sometimes when I get a respiratory infection or something of that nature my inner ears get clogged up as well. Could be hereditary, where an RI may not cause head tilt in one rat but will in another if the genetics allow it.

Could it be possible to eliminate it by feeding off the infected & their offspring? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.

Take care!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

here is actually a decent info page... http://www.afrma.org/med_misc1.htm

I was actually reading on this yesterday and what I found was that albino rats have eye problems and will sway their head back and forth to gain depth perception. I am sure there are other symptoms but I am just gonna leave her a lone and see if she gets better. Good luck to yours.

Pink eyed rats do sway their heads. A head tilt can be the start of resp. infection or a middle ear infection.
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Shannon in Reno
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
Bunch O fancy rats and mice
50 something chickens
0.1 Black rat snake
0.2 Albino corn snakes
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
0.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend