[new_rattie_mommy]

So my girl rose is sick with a pretty severe upper respiratory infection. It's worse than I've ever seen any of mine have. The doc put her on baytril and doxycycline to cover it. It's been a week and she sounds tons better but still seems sickly. Today her eye was very red and kind of crusty and she couldn't really open it for a while. Is that normal porphyrin at this point in her treatment course or would it be a bad sign like an eye infection or something?

 

[mis.kay]

My last girl used to get really bad respiratory infections and she would get crusty porphyrin eyes too. It was bad enough for me to have to clean every night. I usually would get a cotton ball and soak it in warm water and gently wipe from front to back towards her ears. Don't rub it too much. Ive never actually seen an eye infection on a rat but if after cleaning you notice it looks off I would bring her in to get checked out again. But it is probably just excess porphyrin.

 

[new_rattie_mommy]

Ok good. I suspected that but just found it strange that at this point when she's getting better it happened. And I've just never seen her so sick as this time around so it made me wonder. I'll just keep an eye on it and if it continues after treatment I'll see if I need to take her back.

 

[Isamurat]

If its only one eye then it is possible that there's something else going on. I would bathe it in saline or cold black tea for today and if the same eye flares up again tomorrow or it looks like its got debris or marks on the surface of the eye I would get her on eye ointment too (now that's fun to get in lol).