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It is a good idea to keep your rat medicine cabinet stocked!
It didn't take us long to realize that there are some things that are just good to have on hand in the rat's medicine
cabinet. These things are much akin to keeping band-aids and tissues around your house for unexpected human
emergencies. These things include:
Hydrogen Peroxide: Because a rat's skin is different than our skin, there are some things that are simply not
safe to
use with rats. You can't, for example, effectively use rubbing alcohol on a rat to clean out a wound because the skin will
dry out and die. You also can't use salves such as Neosporin on rat wounds. You can, however, religiously use Hydrogen
Peroxide and this is actually a good thing, because once it stops fizzing, you know it's clean! Just a warning though, rats
are very confused by the sensations they feel when Hydrogen Peroxide is applied, and they will get very fidgety!
Styptic Powder: When I had first read that someone recommended keeping this on hand, I thought they were
crazy. When
I encountered the first rat-bite-rat hole, I thought they were even crazier. What I learned the hard way is that little holes
can lead to the biggest problems, and there is no good way to stop a little rat paw, toe, or foot from bleeding. For
those mishaps where a rat rips his toe-nail out, catches his tail on something, or has a sore on his foot break open, styptic
powder is the answer, that is, after cleaning the wound out, of course.
Children's Chewable Bayer: Rats get sick and feverish every once in awhile and if you think they have a
fever,
it is
a good idea to give him a 4th of a Bayer Chewable aspirin to help break the fever. It is also a good idea in such cases to
make a quick follow-up visit to your Dr. Bob to see if your rat should be taking any antibiotics.
Veterinary Opthalmic Ointment: If you ask nicely, I'm sure your Dr. Bob would be willing to sell you a tube
of
opthalmic ointment for those unexpected occasions when a rat nail accidentally (or otherwise) swipes a rat eyeball, or a rat
sleeps with his eyeball open on a floor or on wood chips and an infection starts. The sooner you use the opthalmic ointment
the sooner the infection goes away and the less chance your rat has of getting a scar on his or her eyeball. These small
tubes usually don't expire for 4 years which exceeds the life of your rat. It's worth the $12 investment and will save you
$100s of dollars in veterinary bills.
Ivermectin Paste: This one is a hard one to track down, but well worth the effort. You need to find a store
that
specializes in Equestrian goods and order a tube of Ivermectin paste. You will need to do this because one of three possible
aspects of chance will happen (or maybe something even more out-of-the-blue): (1) You will feel compelled to buy a cute
little baby rat who, unbeknownst to you is covered in bugs, (2) You will take your rat out to a rat show, touch another rat
with bugs, touch your rat, and unbeknownst to you, have an itchy fleasy rat, (3) Your next bedding purchase will have come out
of an outside storage area and will have very small particles of red lice life in it. If any of the above happens, you
probably won't notice it, after all, the little red louse doesn't come out to greet you. What will most likely happen is that
you won't see the little buggers, you'll have the new rat separated for a month to wash away any potential spreading of
illnesses, you will put your new rat, or your pet show rat in with his friends, and a month after that you'll notice that
their appetites aren't all that great, there is porphyrin staining around their noses, but they otherwise don't appear very
sick. After all, they're breathing just fine! And you'll give them a scratch and notice that your girls suddenly have
dander, or that your boys' dander is suddenly moving, and you'll head out to the kitchen, get a toothpick, dip it in the
Ivermectin tube taking out no more than an uncooked grain of rice, and you will feed it to any rats that came in contact with
that particular rat and you'll be so happy that you listened to me! What happens if you don't keep it on hand? You
feel itchy all over until you find some!
Skin Glue: While at your vet's asking to purchase Opthalmic Ointment, ask him if he or she has on hand or can
order
some Nexaband skin glue. It's a little tube of translucent blue gel that will greatly improve your life and save you a lot of
veterinary dollars in the long run. When your rats get in those unexpected fights and put one to two inch gashes in each
other, you can clean out the would, shave off a little bit of the surrounding fur, clean the wound again, and glue Humpty
Humpty back together again. If you don't think you have aggressive rats so you think you won't need it, think again. All
rats have fingernails and all rats with fingernails have a good chance of getting abscesses (see "Abscesses stink.")
and those abscesses, without fail, will open
themselves to reveal big gaping holes that can very easily be cleaned out and glued together.
Scissors: Scissors should be kept on hand for obvious reasons, like trimming the toenails of an older rat who
simply
isn't scratching enough to keep them down. It also comes in handy when you need to trim away dead skin, hair that is in the
way, etc. Short but sharp scissors tend to be the best by the way, particularly the little pocket kind. You have less
changes of accidentally snipping something that moved in the way.
Cotton Balls and Q-Tips: Cotton Balls are necessary to clean out general areas with Hydrogen Peroxide, and are
also
good for little sponge baths for sick or ill rats. Q-Tips are great for cleaning out abscesses and infections and for getting
to those hard-to-reach places. Q-Tips also come in handy when a rat is apparently choking on something because if you are
quick enough, you can clear the obstruction out of the rat's mouth easily with a Q-Tip without causing any damage (of course
this also requires prying the rat's mouth open which is often easier said
than done). Q-Tips are also good for cleaning out
ear infections and/or opening the ear enough to see if there is an
infection. Be careful not to push the cotton swap to far
in though!
Syringes: It's a good thing to have a couple of little
syringes handy "just in case." Do remove the needles
though! Syringes make it very easy to feed your sick rat some sugar water
or baby food to stimulate his appetite when he is
otherwise not so inclined.
Tylan: Because most rats have or are predisposed to
Mycoplasma (see "Mycoplasma is as
bad as it sounds," it
is a good
idea to keep some Tylan on hand for use when your rats become
exceptionally sneezy. Tylan will not make the Mycoplasma go
away, but it will prevent it from worsening which is why it's a good idea
to have it on hand. If not treated immediately, you
will witness extreme difficulties with breathing and it could also lead to
scared lungs, and ultimately and early demise. You
can purchase small packets of this product from the Rat and Mouse Club of
America at http://www.rmca.org
Water-soluble doxycycline: Because more often than not, the Tylan simply doesn't work. It doesn't work because the sneezing and
snortling you're hearing isn't "just" myco but rather myco combined with some secondary infections. You can read more about how to use it
here and can purchase it at Global Pigeon (in the DAC Medications section) or at
Jedd's Pigeon Supply (search for doxycycline).
tip: When navigating through the RatTails,
clicking on the image that looks like the image above
will take you back to this table of contents!
Disclaimer: There are many non-sarcastic accounts and tips on the web regarding rat care. This is not
one of them. These are merely accounts of our experiences with rats, our perceptions of these experiences, where we've failed
and where we've succeeded. These accounts are here for two purposes:
2) To help avoid repetition of mistakes
Remember! Your rat is not a science project, he is your friend!
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