[Rattienewby]

Hi guys so this morning after I left for work my boyfriend found that one of our rats had a bulging eye. He took her straight into the vet and they're thinking it's either a tumor or abcess causing it. Our options were antibiotic drops or removing the eye, and I obviously chose to try drops first.

But what do you think our chances are of this working?? She's only 6 months old and always been perfectly healthy, this literally happened just overnight. I'm so worried and scared for her. She is acting completely normal though and doesn't seem to be in any pain.

Thoughts??

 

[Rhonwen]

Sorry to hear your little one is having this issue... I haven't experienced this in rats, but I did have it happen in one of my older cats... It turned out to be an abcess, which was dealt with rather easily. I can say from recent experience that giving rats eye drops is no easy task!

 

[Rattienewby]

Thank you for your reply! Really hoping the same will happen with this little girl. Of course she's the more active of our 2 so drops will definitely be interesting

 

[Rattienewby]

Update: Our sweet Phoebe had to have her eye taken out this morning. She is now home recovering with a cone on.

Problem!! She is totally freaking out trying to use her hands while eating. I've tried softening her Oxbow a bit with water but she's still really struggling with it. Is there any sort of supplementing I can do while this cone is on? We can't take it off until Monday afternoon! Baby formula? Anything she can lick up instead?

 

[Rattenstein]

Sorry to hear about her eye, I hope she recovers quickly

If she needs something soft she can lick up I've heard of feeding rats baby food. You could also try canned pumpkin, mashed banana, roasted mashed sweet potato, roasted pureed pumpkin, apple sauce, etc. You could put her favorite fresh fruits/veggies in a blender with some juice and make a smoothie, too. Maybe soak the oxbow in something tastier, like chicken stock for awhile until it turns to mush? She might like oatmeal as well.

 

[nanashi7]

Try soaking it in ensure. Also try getting Nutrical paste for cats and letting her lick it off your finger. Make sure she drinks at least 3 mLs a day.

 

[Rattenstein]

OK I just wanted to pop back in here and I'm not trying to be rude, but... If you want to use ensure you might as well soak her food in a milkshake because that would have fewer chemicals. Ensure is trash and I wouldn't feed it to anything, rat, human, or otherwise. It's basically sugar, milk, oil, and chemicals. Yum. Just saying.

 

[autokate]

Most baby foods are fine. I've fed mine the pureed meats such as chicken and turkey, as well as bananas, peas, green beans, apple sauce, you name it. I had a sick rat and bought a variety of baby foods for him to eat and I quickly learned what he liked and didn't! I also fed multi-grain baby cereal--the dry flakes that you mix with water. He loved that too. When he got really old and just couldn't/wouldn't eat his oxbow anymore, I made a mixture of egg noodles, baby food meat (chicken, or turkey), scrambled eggs, and whole peas, all mixed together and put into ice trays for single ratty serving sizes, freezed it all and then would defrost and feed him twice daily, along with the oxbow out 24/7 in case he wanted/needed it. He did really well on the mixture and loved eating it. Just experiment with different soft foods. She should do fine! Ratties are so very resilient! Let us know how she does!

 

[Rattienewby]

Phoebe has become completely depressed tonight and is going thru moments of total insanity trying to get the cone off and then literally sitting in one place for 15+ minutes.

Her heart rate gets going very fast during those 'insane' moments. We called the emergency vet for advice and against original vet's orders we are taking the cone off for a couple hours tonight while we are able to monitor her.

Has anyone had this happen before? We are preparing to take it off as I type this, but we are really worried the stress of leaving it on has a higher chance of killing her now than taking it off. She is totally miserable :/

 

[Jess <3]

So sorry to hear that she's struggling. It difficult not being able to tell your rat that what you're doing is for their own good. Maybe it would be a good idea to take the cone off a few times a day for short periods out of the cage and under your supervision. Picks the times of the day that she's most active since that's when she'll probably be trying the hardest to get it off.

As for the food thing, if your still struggling, syringe feeding is a pretty good idea. I feed my rats from a syringe occasionally just incase they need to take medicine from it in the future and they love it! Right now i'm syringe feeding an elderly rat three times a day. It would make it alot easier for her to acsess to food without the cone getting in the way or getting soft food stuck inside it.

Hope everything turns out well for you and you rattie. x

 

[Rattienewby]

And now things have gone down hill again. Thinking a respiratory infection?? She's making weird sounds but also has terrible balance and isn't using her hands to eat... Is that common? We picked up some bayrtil but I don't know if I should expect it to work.

 

[Rattenstein]

It could be a pituitary tumor, I'm not an expert though and I've never had any personal experience with this. But being unbalanced and not using her hands are both signs of one. Is she clenching her fists? Is she unable to eat with her hands at all? You could do the 'cheerio test' give her a cheerio or other similarly sized bit of food and see if she can hold it while she eats it.
I'm sorry about your ratty, I hope she's ok.
And I'm sorry if I'm no help at all.