it sounds like your rats are affected by mycoplasma. it is a disease that all rats are infected with unless they were delivered by c section as they pick it up when passing through the birth canal. not all rats are affected by this but all are infected. some of the symptoms include sneezing and weezing. if you keep your rats on pine bedding you should change it to something else (preferably shredded paper) as soon as you can as pine is very harmful to rats lungs. try to use beding with the least dust possible as this can iriitate the lungs. Mycoplasma flair ups are often caused by dust or dirty cages. Other symptoms are a wet nose and mucus discharge from the eyes and nose. Common things to check for are reddish brown sneeze spots, on their food dishes, bedding, houses etc, as sometimes the rat can be very cleanly and you will not notice the discharge on them because they clean it off so quickly. It can NOT be transferred from rat to human, but both humans and rats can have the disease. If you think your rat has these symptoms i would suggest taking it to the vets. the vets can treat it with a few different types of treatment but i do not know wheather it could still be fed if thats what they were meant for.
hope this helps,
lee
