Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[new-b]

hey guys, i just got 2 new rats (both female) got them off a friend who was moving. They are about 6months old, i'm having abit of trouble with the albino ruby eyed rat (Ruby) she doesnt eat very much and she gets to the point where her stomach shrinks and her back arches. My friend had to give her mouth to mouth at one point cause she passed out! She is really boney but she still seems very active, she'll take food through the bars but i havent actually seen her take any out of the food bowl yet. i'm just wondering if she could be blind but i dont know how to tell. i'm also looking for ways to fatten her up cause i know she is very under weight. any advice would be great.

Thanks

Hannah

[neep_neep]

If you pinch up the skin on the back of her neck, does it ping straight back down or does it take a while to go back into shape? If it takes a little while, it could mean that she's dehydrated.

Do you know how much she weighs? At 6 months old she should be reaching her full adult size. Females tend to vary quite widely - you can get petite females at about 220g or so, 300g is the average, but you can also get some 500 or 600g porkers The fact that she's passed out before is extremely concerning, there may be some underlying cause to her poor condition, so the best option all round would be to take her to the vet. Maybe she has an endoparastic infection (i.e. worms)?

There are a number of different foods you can use to boost her appetite/calorie intake - there is a paste called Enervite (dog version) or Ferretvite (ferret version!) which are both suitable for use with rats. I used this on one of my older boys before when he lost weight. For some reason they seem to really like the taste!

If she's blind it won't really make an awful lot of difference to her...pink eyed rats tend to have slightly poorer eyesight than the black eyed rats anyway, and take a little longer to focus. If you ever see her swaying her head from side to side, she will be focusing - therefore likely not blind to be honest, the rat's major sensory organs are the ears, nose and whiskers, and eyes tend to come after those in importance!

Tempt her with lots of yummy treats in the food bowl - a good one if she needs to put on weight would be eggfood mixed with soya milk. You'll find eggfood in the bird sections of petshops - usually under the name EMP or CeDe. It smells lovely!

But I would definitely take her to the vet!
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Sophie

[new-b]

Thanks for the advice She weighs 180g, managed to get her to sit still long enough last night to get her weighed, shes pretty hyper.

Havent had a chance to get her to the vets yet, it was closed over the weekend and the surgery times dont fit in with my work times unfortunately but I'm off tomorrow so she'll b going first thing!

I was watching her for a while last night while she was in her cage and shes took to nawing her bars or what i thought was nawing, when I looked closer it looks as if she licking the bars rather than nawing them. Any idea what that could be?

She's the most puzzling rat I've had!

Thanks again