Sunday: Rats and mycoplasmosis

Mycoplasmosis is an infectious disease. Unfortunately, most rats have this disease. If you have say five rats and one get the disease after about a day with the other rats they will have it too. Now, mycoplasmosis isn't the worst disease in the world because it won't kill them... right away. 

If your rat dies of mycoplasmosis then it got to the stage called pneumonia. Pneumonia is a very painful process to the rat that has it. If your rat has pneumonia then for the rats sake you want to put him to sleep. The way you can tell if he has pneumonia is by simply looking at him. If he has rust colored mucus on his eyes and nose, is losing weigh rapidly (running through the cage in order to catch his breath), is gasping with his mouth open quite frequently, isn't eating the food you give them, or they don't ever come out to see you even if you are offering a treat then your rat might have pneumonia. If you rat has one of these symptoms then he most likely doesn't have pneumonia but might; in this case take him to the vet.

Mycoplasmosis can be treated very easily with medicines. Like for my rats we use tetracycline. You can find this in almost every pet store. Once you have it use a spoon to put a small amount into their water. When I first did this I was wondering how much you have to put into the water. Put more until it reaches a light yellow color like this:
It can be darker than this too but don't make it very much lighter. When you put this in their water make sure the bottle isn't in direct light. IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE TO CLEAN OUT THEIR BOTTLE EVERYDAY. Tetracycline only lasts a single day. If you don't clean their bottle out everyday they will get very sick. Even more sick then they were before. Keep using tetracycline for about three of four weeks. To be on the safe side you can use it everyday for the rest of their lives. Remember that more tetracycline is better then none. If their symptoms continue then you will want to take them to their vet right away. They might need stronger medicines.  

Also, another way to keep them safe and healthy is to clean their cage more often. Remember that, and they should be fine; they should live a long healthy life! Think of how important they are to you and you will hopefully take good care of their lungs that get scared every time they cough. Take good care of them!

This week is the theme week of RATS so get ready for this ratty week!:D Here is my first drawing of a rat! 

All I used to make this was marker and pencil on a blank sheet of printing paper.