• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Help Help Help

maegann

I'm Me, Deal With It
I was holding my male rat today to socialize him and i held him up so i could look at his face. his nose seems to have blood in it!!! :eek1: som edry and some still wet. not a lot, like he had been bleeding for a long time. what should I do?! :shrugs: :cry:
 
What you're seeing is called Poryphin, its just rat tears/mucus. Kind of like snot, but it doesn't always indicate that they are sick. Sometimes they just have it. There can be a build up if they are allergic to bedding, or before the cage gets cleaned out, or just from lots of stress. Its NOT blood, and there's not much point in whiping it away, because it will just come back.
 
If youve seen your male checking out your female when shes not interested youll see that her defense is to stick her foot in his face. With their sharp claws they can easily tear the soft nasal tissue, injure eyes, and tear ears. If its due to this there isnt much you can do.

I havent found poryphin in healthy animals. If i suspect it may be due to this I will put my hand around the rat, right behind the front legs, and I can usually feel labored breathing, I then hold the rat nose up to my ear, as they are naturally curious they normally check it out and enable me to hear their breathing.

At the point Ive determined there is something wrong with their breathing they are quarantined to see if its allergies or sickness. Once healthy again they are culled. Ive found that once they get an RI they tend to come back over and over.

Bryan
 
Back
Top