Rat
Rescue :: Frequently
Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Please check here for any answers to questions before emailing
Cavyrescue. You may find we have answered it already!
RAT FAQs
Are rats sensitive to spray polish (to clean the furniture
in the room the rats will be housed) because they have susceptible
respiratory systems?
Yes, rats are susceptible to all sorts of smells and scents,
including smoke, cooking smells, perfume, polish etc. Their
lungs can be irritated which can excarebate or cause respiratory
problems.
Can rats be infected with salmonella that can be passed on
to humans?
I really have no idea about this, but a) I'd imagine that if
a rat got salmonella, it would probably die and I'd be hard
pressed to think what you'd feed them for them to get
salmonella
b) the only time you may catch something from a rat (and they
don't carry lots of diseases despite their bad press) is if
you ingest their poo, get bitten, or let them lick inside your
mouth
Is a Buck or Doe best for me (I am a 19 year old student)
as I have been told that Bucks can be aggressive and may need
to be castrated and they leave scent trials, Does are quicker
and more curious, so I cannot decide for the best.
The only aggressive rats I've ever had have been aggressive
due to being abused in the past; not handled; or being the odd
head case (a bit like humans!). Their sex doesn't make a difference.
Does are smaller and more lively and not always up for a good
cuddle. Bucks are bigger and as they get older, start to be
less lively and a bit lazy and cuddly.
Sure the boys are a tad smellier and do like to scent you as
a sign of ownership, but not all of them. I have 10 boys here
and only two are regular scenters. I get them out, they sit
on my shoudlers, They pee. No problem!
Please get a same sex pair as otherwise a singular rat does
get lonely no matter how much attention you give them.
Is a cage at least 60x30x30cm large enough for a pair of rats
and what is the best floor covering/bedding?
The cage is too small. Pets At Home do a good rat starter cage
- it's called Ferplast Mary and is about £70. It is the
minimum size of cage you should consider for a pair of rats
( 80cm x 50cm x 37.5cm ) . We tend to use the Mary size cages
for elderly single rats or sick rats. You should never house
more than two rats in a cage this size, and, again, this is
the bare minimum size.
The bigger the cage, the better for rats - an ideal cage will
have more height so that rats can climb and so that ou can put
ropes, hammocks etc in.it.A ferplast Jenny cage (size: 80cm
x 50cm x 79.5cm ) fits the bill and will house up to six rats
comfortably and is great for young rats. (Though you will need
to put hammocks across the cage to add extra 'shelving' as they
can get excitable and fall off the shelves provided and this
will add a safety net for them!).
The base of the cage should be plastic - not wire or mesh otherwise
they can get ulcerated feet which never really heal up - and
with wire bars about 15mm apart, to prevent a rat from squeezing
through. .
As to litter to cover the base of the cage - please never use
sawdust. Dusty products can cause respiratory problems and -
before we got into rescuing and were simply pet owners one of
our pets died as a result of being on dusty shavings.We recommend
you use EcoPetBed which you can buy online from www.earthlyenterprises.co.uk
. It is around £20 a bale (unless you have storage and
buy in bulk, which will make it cheaper) but that should last
you 30 - 40 cleaning outs so is stll great value. Or try Carefresh
Pet Bedding, from Supreme; Biocatolet wood based cat litter,
all from pet shops.
Are rats uncomfortable with noise such as TV, music etc?
They don't like lots of noise - it can scare them. If you are
out, then leaving the radio on low is fine. But lots of people;
screeching children and noise can stress them out.
And finally, I live in South Wales and was wondering if there
are any good rat breeders in and around this area, I have found
nothing on the Internet near me.
I don't know of any rat breeders in your area - have you contacted
the national fancy rat society? They may be able to help. Or,
how about a pair of rescue rats - there are sadly literally
hundreds of thousands needing homes - try www.ratrehome.co.uk
or contact us.
For more ratty advice, look at www.ratplanet.co.uk;
use our guides or contact us
What do you feed your rats?
Currently, we feed our rats on a mixture of dried rat food
(we use Xtravital by Beaphar which has added Echinacea) , together
with an ‘organic’ mix of our own. This consists of porridge
oats, dried split peas and beans, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds,
popcorn (natural, unsalted), dried apricots, a few raisins.
We also ‘chuck in’ pasta (great for their teeth), plain breadsticks,
bran flakes, banana chips and the odd digestive.
Brown bread – fresh or toasted, is also part of their diet.
They also enjoy tomatoes – simply put a whole cherry tomato
in their cage and watch them play with it (like a football),
then devour it. It is also has good medicinal properties too.
Boiled eggs, in their shell, slightly cracked so they get the
‘smell’, go down a treat too!
Dog biscuits, in small quantities, are excellent for their
health – too many though can cause skin allergies.
Every other day, we also give them a SMALL amount of fresh
food – anything goes except the lettuce, onions or citrus fruits
(eg limes, oranges). They love cabbage, carrots etc. Cucumber
is a big favourite!
We NEVER feed bones in case they splinter, but give them the
odd bit of cooked chicken or ham (off the bone).
Arsenic
Arsenic is present in small quantities in all fruit stones
and pips – eg apples, plums, peaches. Humans remain unaffected
if they do eat the stones. For ratties, however, it can be dangerous.
ALWAYS remove the pips or stones before feeding fruit to your
rat.
Excessive amounts of chocolate is also toxic to ratties. Stick
the ratty and hamster treats you can buy in pet shops such as
choc or yoghurt drops.
The golden rule when feeding your rattie is – no excessive
salt, sugar or protein.
If you have a sick or scrawny rat, a supplementary product
called “Ferretvite” which comes in a tube at a price of around
£4 is really good as builds them up.
My rat has an upset stomach – what should I do?
Don’t overfeed the fresh stuff, or they will get the runs.
If they do get an upset stomach, empty their food dish and put
them on toasted (brown if possible) bread ONLY with lots of
fresh water for a few days. If it doesn’t clear up – see your
vet!!
What should I use to line my rats’ cage with?
Never use dusty products – ie woodshavings or sawdust. Dusty
products can cause severe respiratory problems. And never use
scented products, especially pine. Pine wood is poisonous to
rats.
Good products are:
-
Carefresh Pet Bedding made by Supreme and
available in most pet shops (around £4 a bag)
-
Biocatolet paper based cat litter (around
£4 from supermarkets)
-
Ecopetbed carboard bedding
-
Finacard cardboard begdding
You will need a house within the cage for your rat to snuggle up in. Fill this
with nestling material such as the white stuff you can buy from
pet shops.
My rats has sore, itchy skin. What is wrong?
Itchy, sore skin can be caused by:
-
Mites or lice
-
Allergy (normally too much protein in their
food, such as yoghurt drops, dog biscuits, even too much dried
rat food). We have rehomed loads of rats recently who have
developed skin allergies – due to loving owners understandably
spoiling them.
-
Claws too long
-
Other!!!
If your rattie experiences skin problems, no matter what you
think the cause may be, please take them to the vet!
My rat nips me when I wake them up – why?
How would you like to be shaken from a deep slumber. Don’t
do it!!
Is smoking (cigarettes or otherwise!) in the vicinity of my
animal dangerous to them?
Yes! If you must smoke, try to do it in a different room to
your pet. Small animals are very susceptible to vapours such
as smoke, cooking smells, paint. Their environment should be
free from dust, draughts and vapours!
What is respiratory disease?
This could on for pages and pages, but basically, every rat
has a bacteria in their system that could turn into the all-too-common
respiratory disease due to old age, stress or any other number
of reasons.
If your rat experiences any of the following, get them to the
vet – in most cases it can be treated and/or controlled:
If your rat has any of these symptoms, the sooner you get it
treated, the better. Left untreated it can cause severe problems
eventually leading to premature death.
See our Guide to Rat
respiratory disease
What should I do when a rat dies leaving a single cage mate?
I was hoping you may be able to help me. I had to have one
of my female rats put to sleep this morning - the vet suspected
a tumour or lesion in the brain. I still have concerns that
it could have in fact been an inner ear infection, but as she's
2 years old, the vet felt it would be best to put her down now
and she had lost weight and was struggling to balance. The problem
is that I am now left with one female - Mildred.
She's also two years old and having taken these two rats on
as badly handled youngsters, she's the one who's never really
came round to enjoying handling (the other rat was fabulous
and occasionally came out on school visits etc). Mildred will
occasionally nip when she's worried and finds handling quite
stressful.
She is currently housed in a large indoor cage next to my dwarf
rabbit who has also recently become friendless (got her from
the RSPCA a few years ago as a companion for my elderly rescue
lop who has now also passed on from cancer). The rat and the
rabbit seem to find each other quite interesting but obviously
can not share a cage. Am I best to now keep the rat on her own
with the rabbit for company or would it be possible to introduce
new rats at this stage?
I was thinking of getting some young males in the future that
would be socialised and able to accompany me on some school
trips to show how great rats are. If I got males, I could potentially
have them neutered. Any advice would be greatly appreciated,
as I want Mildred to have a contented life, however long that
may be.
A. I think it would be best to get two new friends for Mildred.
I had a similar girl here - Rosie - who lost her sister at aged
four months old (she died of a tumour). Rosie was always a bit
of a biter and not that handable. She was introduced to two
young female dumbos – who were extremely laid back - and now
she is a friendly, really nice natured lady. It has made a real
difference to her.
As we run a rescue, we don't tend to neuter males very often
(the cost to neuter each male that came through the doors is
too prohibitive!) so have always paired up same sex (whole)
rats in cases like this. However, I cannot imagine that introducing
two neutered boys will be a lot different to introducing two
young girls. That being said, the time delay between neutering
and introductions could be four weeks, so I think Mildred would
appreciate the company now!
Two youngsters would be best - then if Mildred doesn't want
to play, they have each other to turn to. I’d also say be prepared
for the highly unlikely event that they may not get on -and
so you'd have two rat cages!
Also, Mildred will need lots of extra love and attention. Try
and vary her routine so that she has something else to think
about. (eg get her out to play when you normally wouldn't, get
new toys etc so that she doesn't sink into depression. Gradually
remove her cagemate's smell over a period of a week or so.
If you think of how you would treat a human who had lost his
best friend, then you get the idea (eg you'd take them out for
the day, change their lifestyle slightly to help them forget
for a while)
As she will be upset, Mildred will also be more susceptible
to respiratory problems so see if your vet will give you some
baytril - give her 0.3ml of 2.5% oral baytril twice a day for
10 days. Syringe it into a small piece of bread, cheese, farleys
rusk, jam or similar. (Anything to mask the taste - also keeping
the baytril refrigerated helps take the bitter taste away a
little).
Once you have got two new friends for Mildred, read our article
here for tips on successful intros:
http://www.cavyrescue.co.uk/rat-article12.shtml
I do hope this has helped - so sorry again for your loss.
What to do if my rat gets a lump
While we never profess to be vets, we would say that lumps/tumours
are very common, sadly, in ratties. However, they can often
be successfully removed and your rat can go on to live a long
life.
Like all ratty illnesses, the sooner they are treated, the
better.
In males, lumps are less common. However, they can normally
be removed sucessfully and will never normally reoccur. Sadly,
in females, lumps are sadly common and they can spring up out
of nowhere. You have two options that you can discuss with your
vet:
-
have the lump removed by a vet who is experienced
at lump removals and if you rat is strong enough, get her
spayed at the same time. However, this does not mean she will
not get more lumps sadly but the spaying should help.
-
Or, try a non-surgical option:
The first medicine you can try is an eighth to a quarter of
tamoxifen 10mg daily. (This is a drug used on woman who have
had breast cancer). You have to wear gloves so that you don't
absorb it into the skin and rats hate the taste but it can be
masked by honey, jam, swiss roll etc!) I've had rats where lumps
have disappeared and then where nothing has happened so it is
hit and miss. See here for more info on tamoxifen: http://www.ratfanclub.org/tamox.html.
This is to be used on female rats only - in males it can cause
prostrate cancer
-
Shark cartilage – while this is not as widely
used as tamoxifen in treating rats, it has had many positive
reports. You can buy 650mg capsules from Holland and Barrett
(cost about £16.00) Break one capsule into four doses
and administer one dose twice a day for big lumps, once a
day for smaller.
-
Further Reading
http://www.freewebs.com/miscrats/howtotreatatumour.htm
Side Effects
As with all medications, you need to be aware of the any side
effects and you should also make you vet aware too:
Tamoxifen
You should note that with tamoxifen, the rat can be more suspectible
to bruising/bleeding easily due to the way the drug works, so
any operations should only be carried out at least two weeks
after you have stopped using the drug.
Shark Cartilage
If you try this after a lump removal to try to prevent further
growth of tumours, wait at least a week after surgery before
starting, as it works by preventing growth of new blood vessels.
We have two ratties Franz, a black & white hooded and
Ferdie a gray dumbo... Ferdie has always been sneezy, but is
managed on and off with Baytril and Carefresh etc. Franz has
never really shown any symptons till last week rattling breathing
and slowly but surely becoming more apathetic, he is usually
a feisty rat and very to the fore.... We got him to the vet
he has had a Baytril injection and they are both on Baytril
through their water... The vet would not advise if he was near
to death or would get better, which does not help us... He is
back at home now still quiet, I am keeping a very close eye
on him. Is there anything else that you would advise at this
point that we can do, and assumably all the different treatments
that you have on your site are all given by a vet?
So sorry about your two boys.To be honest, Baytril in the water
will not do the job as well - you cannot be sure that the boys
are getting the right amount and, also, because it tastes so
bitter, they may drink less of their water, making them dehyrated
and worsening the problem.
Please see our guide here: http://www.cavyrescue.co.uk/rat-respiratory-guide.shtml
You really do need to get back to your vet - if you print out
this and the page I've just directed you to and show them to
your vet, they should be able to give you the medication. Unfortunately
the vet is the only one who has access to these medications.
If your vet has any doubts, then he or she can call either one
of my vets to check it over with them (Please do not call the
vet yourself - it is best that your vet calls him). Please email
cavyrescue@yahoo.co.uk
for their details)
I would suggest the marbocyl and ronanxan combination mentioned
in the guide as this is a more aggressive form of treatment
and we have lots of success with it, helping the disease remain
under control. Depending on bad the chaps are I would add Prednisolone
(which is part of the steroid family that can be used to treat
inflammatory conditions) in 1mg tablet form.
This can help ease the symptoms, using approximately half of
one tablet twice a day for 10 days with the aim of reducing
the dose gradually over several weeks to half a tablet every
other day. NB You must never stop the preds just like that as
it can be fatal, a rat must always be weaned off them.
Franz could well pick up on this medication - I took in Blue
Boy in June last year and he was at death's door with respiratory
problems. He is still with us using the combination of drugs
above - the preds are a very important part.
Also, keep the air in the room moist so their lungs don't dry
out - a bowl of water near a radiator is great.
Re: losing a cage mate, Ferdie will need lots of extra love
and attention. Try and vary his routine so that he has something
else to think about. (eg get him out to play when you normally
wouldn't, get him new toys etc so that he doesn't sink into
depression. Gradually remove Franz's smell over a period of
a week or so. If you think of how you would treat a human who
had lost his best friend, then you get the idea (eg you;d take
them out for the day, change their lifestyte slightly to help
them forget for a while)
As he will be upset, Ferdie will also be more susceptible to
respiratory problems so give him 0.3ml of 2.5% oral baytril
twice a day for 10 days. Syringe it into a small piece of bread,
cheese, farleys rusk, jam or similar. (Anything to mask the
taste - also keeping the baytril refrigerated helps take the
bitter taste away a little).
I have 2 male rats named pinky and brownie, they are dumbos.
Unfortunately pinky has become very ill with respiratory problems.
He has had an injection of steroids from the vet and is on baytril
2.5% The baytril doesn’t seem to be working but worse still
he as stopped eating and drinking which as made him very weak,
and we can't even get him to take the baytril.
Both myself and my girlfriend are really concerned and wondered
if you had any tips on how to get him eating and drinking. We
have tried putting the baytril directly into his mouth with
a syringe but I presume due to the bitter taste he quickly learnt
that the syringe is something to run from.
Is there a way to hold him still enough to get the syringe
up to him and to get him to open his mouth up. We are going
to consult our vet as to the use of some of the other treatments
suggested on your site which is very helpful.
Many thanks, John
John, I am so so sorry to hear about Pinky.
Food wise, you need to give him something easy and appealing
to eat. Baby food is always a winner as is shredded chicken
breast etc. Farleys rusk broken up with hot water poured on
top and complan or build up powered drinks are great once cooled.
Sick ratties tend to like licking food off your finger so try
that.
If baytril has been in his water bottle, get a fresh bottle
to encourage him to drink. Bottled water is also great if you
can manage it as tap water carries elements which are slightly
toxic to rats.
Baytril is bitter but if you refrigerate it, it lessens the
taste.
Ask your vet if you can swap to other medications which don't
taste as bad. We use this combination which are tablets (marbocyl
is a tablet form of baytril but a bit more aggressive)
• half a marbocyl 5mg once a day
• an eighth of ronanxan 20 twice a day
• Plus prednisolone (1mg tablets), typically half a tablet twice
a day
These can be easily mixed in to foods once you can tempt Pinky
to eat.
Ideas for tempting food in which you can crush drugs:
http://www.cavyrescue.co.uk/ratdrugs.shtml
Try not to stress Pinky out. It will make him feel worse. Keep
him warm and away from draughts. If he lives with Brownie, keep
them together. Separating them can stress them out.
This is also a very useful site: http://ratguide.com/health/
I do hope this has helped. Please do get back to me if you need
any further help.
VET’S BILLS CAN BE EXPENSIVE. IF YOU
ARE NOT PREPARED TO PAY VET’S BILLS, THEN PLEASE DO NOT CONSIDER
HAVING A PET.
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