# Elderly rat w/ heavy buck grease losing patches of hair



## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

My elderly guy, Patches, has been through a lot in the last month. He lost his cagemate to a nasty cancer (RIP Ratty), lost a ton of weight and just got over (and hopefully stays over) a nasty respiratory infection (just finished baytril/doxy last night). I've been nursing him back to health, but he still needs to gain some more weight imo. 

My main concern for this post is his heavy buck grease that I believe is causing him to barber. There is a 1.5 square inch patch on his lower right back, about an inch above his tail. The fur on his lower back is white, although now discolored to a gross dirty-ish orange color with little orange flakes, obviously from the buck grease. He doesn't seem to like that area touched, and moves away when touched there, so I assume it's sensitive (maybe itchy or causing pain) which may explain the barbering. The bald patch doesn't show any sores or anything, that I can see.

As of now, he doesn't really like being held, and only prefers to be pet on his head and under his chin/jaw area. As you can imagine, I don't want to attempt to put him into water or even take him into a bathroom/kitchen right now, for fear of upsetting him (his breathing is still sometimes labored when he is stressed or doesn't like something we do, like attempting to pick him up for whatever reason). His favorite out-of-cage place right now is on my bed along with all his cozy blankets and his favorite shoebox house I made him for his cage (he allows me to take him and the shoebox out of the cage and onto my bed for chill time).

Any recommendations for cleaning up some of this buck grease off his back? It feels stiff (for lack of better adjectives), and I really want to attempt to clean it up a bit. I've also read about feeding olive oil on a cracker or something to help soften it up a bit. I'd like to know if this is indeed a good idea and if so, how much/often should I attempt this with him?

I'm not sure how much longer this guy has, but I want to make him as comfortable as possible. He is still inquisitive and really shows an interest in eating, so I know he's still somewhat happy with life. Any help/suggestions on cleaning buck grease without a bath would be greatly appreciated!


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

What are you currently feeding him? Also can you get a photo 

For now I would try getting a soft bristled brush and putting a bit of olive oil on it and brushing it a few times, then repeat twice a day. It should break up the grease and help the skin underneath a lot.


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## Phantom (Apr 4, 2012)

I bath my males with a type of soap called Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. It's a pure-castile soap that contains organic oils such as coconut oil, olive oil, hemp oil, and jojoba oil. It really helps with the buck grease on my hairless boy, V, and it keeps their skin from drying out. Isamurat is right, oilive oil helps a lot. I've owned another hairless rat in the past and all of my hairless rats really benefit from the soap as well as olive oil that I used for their skin care. Even my hairless rat, Evy, will develop a little bit of buck grease on the days that she is in heat and especially during the summer months were it's warmer.


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

His everyday food is Oxbow Regal Rat, and I keep it in his cage at all times. I hear him eating it periodically, but obviously not as much as he used to eat before this illness (or his weight might possibly be up). For the last 3 weeks to get him to take his meds, I mixed the meds with a heaping 1/2 tsp. of banana baby food twice daily-he loves this (last night was his last dose). I also offer him almonds, swiss cheese, watermelon, and sometimes broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and some other assorted baby foods such as squash, peas, and green beans, all in an attempt to help him gain weight. He has eaten some of all in the past, but recently upon getting better from his respiratory infection, he seems to only want the almonds and cheese and turns his nose up at most everything else. This morning I offered him and he ate about 1/2 tsp of squash baby food. I'll be honest and say that in the past I usually haven't fed the ratties anything other than the Regal Rat food, mainly because I'm really not sure how to feed them a good balance of 'people' food, i.e. combinations and quantities. Up until this point, they seem to be healthy on that food alone, although I'm willing to offer 'people food' supplements if it really helps their health to offer other foods as well!

I will try the brush with olive oil as I don't want to attempt any bath for him right now since he gets stressed too easily. I've attempted to attach a picture as well. I did ruffle up his fur to get a better shot; it doesn't usually look that ragged! Also, while I was ruffling his fur, I noticed that the fur just seems to come out with very little force. Maybe he's just grooming and it's coming out on its own. Ugh.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

His fur is in very bad condition poor cheap, it looks very greasy, coarse and*overly*long. This is a definite sign that the food he's getting isn't balanced and while it's important to get him back to a good weight doing it with to much unhealthy for won't actually help him long term. It's really tough when you've got a rat who goes off some foods easily though, been there myself. Here's some ideas for healthy and fairly well balance meals that go down well with most of my oldies. 

Cooked white rice, egg mixed in and microwaved until cooked, peas, a few herbs and some soya cream or coconut milk. 

Natural senior dog food

Cous cous with tinned sardines in tomato sauce with chopped cabbage

Cooked egg noodles with savoury baby food.

I would really try and avoid sweet baby foods and the cheese, they really aren't going to do him any good at all. I would also ask the vet to check his urine for protien levels or buy some do sticks and do it yourself (human ones are fine). With his appetite being off and his weight loss is likley he has some level of kidney failure, if so ipaktine or calcium carbonate (What's in most indigestion tablets) will help boost his apetite. The key with these kind of cases I've found is vary what you offer them daily, to make that easier make up a batch and freeze it in single portions (ice cube trays are great for this), that way they don't go off foods as quickly


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

Thank you so much for all this info. I'll definitely try this stuff. His appetite has been much better today than in the past few weeks. Maybe it has something to do with this being his first day not on antibiotics... I don't know. He came up to me while I was eating a muffin this afternoon and stole quite a bit from me! And I just now gave him a ratty-serving of peas and he ate them all up. This was the third time he's eaten today. I'm going to offer him some of the rice/eggs this evening and see how it goes. I also weighed him for the first time in 2.5 weeks and he has gone from 15.5oz/439g to 16.9oz/480g. It's not much, but it's not a loss!


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

Thats actually great in rat terms. If i'm looking to get a healthy weight gain in my guys i tend to aim for about 20g per week, if they loose more than that in 2 consecutive weeks its also time to get to the vet. 10g is a moderate gain, 20g a good gain per week. More than that and they are probably putting it down as fat rather than muscle and such.

Eggy rice is probably my fave bulking up food out there, and aslo just a good back up ratty diet. I do about 1 egg to 200g cooked rice, then a small handful of frozen peas say and a both of the cream to soup it up (i'd drop that once he looks a good weight). You can mess around with all the above, so add some baby food to the eggy rice say or cooked rice and tinned fish. The idea is to follow roughly these proprotions

Carbs - 70-75% e.g. cooked rice, cous cous, noodles, pasta, 4 grain baby porridge mix
Protien - 5-10% egg, fish, cooked chicken, egg food (sold for parrots over here), cat food, etc
Veg - 10% 

Oil - add a few drops of good quiality high omega 3 oils like linseed every day, once a week feed some fish oil

Then theres other bits and bobs you can add as suppliments as you go. Id feed this 50:50 with his oxbow,


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

Thank you so very much. I'm glad to know that some of what I've been feeding him has helped him gain some weight. Patches loved the rice/egg/peas mixture last night! I didn't have any soy/coconut milk on hand, but he loved it nonetheless. I also froze the batch I made in some ice trays as suggested--great idea! It'll make it much easier when fixing meals for him. This morning he had eggs/broccoli and a few pieces of strawberry on the side (he only ate one piece of strawberry, but LOVES the egg haha). I'm going to the grocers soon and will pick up some more ingredients to make a couple more batches to freeze, so I can offer him a variety of options so he doesn't get bored with them. He usually stays in his tube hammock resting, but when he hears me in the kitchen, he comes out and stares at me, seemingly knowing that I'm preparing food for him lol!


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

Im glad its going down well, most rats do adore this. its also great for kidney issues as egg is the kindest protien source for the kidneys, so if he has something like that going on it will be much better for him.

Keep on eating little man


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

So far so good on eating his food. Is there any way to clean off some of this buck grease without submerging him in water? It'll stress him out too much. Would baby wipes even be worth an attempt? The grease is really thick and kinda gross and the olive oil didn't really help much. I have been brushing him twice daily and I'm just not sure any of this is helping matters.


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## Phantom (Apr 4, 2012)

I would get a damp wash cloth soaked in warm water and scrub his back with it a bit. That's what I had to do with V when he started building up buck grease around his scars.


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

Thanks, I'll try it.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

Id do baby wipes or a drop of soap on the washcloth, it will help cut trhough the worst of the crease. Poor lad, must be uncomfortable


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

The damp washcloth didn't do anything  I'm going to get some baby wipes today to see if that helps. It's very uncomfortable for him; his skin flinches as if it's uncomfortable/painful to him. If the baby wipes don't do the trick, I'll attempt a dab of soap on a washcloth. Poor guy has been through a lot. I just want to get him comfortable! Thanks all!


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

Have you treated him for mites at all?


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## Phantom (Apr 4, 2012)

Now that Isamurat mentions it he does look like he has a few tiny scabs on his rear from the picture you posted. Mites are invisible to the naked eye.


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

I gave Patches a little grooming today! I trimmed much of his back fur off with blunt (baby) scissors to assist with removing buck grease. Then I squeezed some water from a washcloth onto his back and rubbed a little Dawn soap on his back, then rinsed with more washcloth water. Didn't do much. So I went into the bathroom, cleaned off the sink area and filled with a small amount of water, laid a hand towel in the sink and slowly set Patches in. He didn't like it at first, but he finally sat still with his hind legs in the water and the front of his body resting on my hand on the slope of the sink wall (it's a gradual slope type bathroom sink). He allowed me to pour warm water over his back area and massage his back with soap, then rinsed, then repeat. Afterwards, I dried him all off with a fluffy towel and we both got on the bed to calm down (he was a little anxious afterwards). The buck grease is SO much better now! It's not perfect, but he seems so much more comfortable now! He allows us to pet him on his back area and pick him up. His back looks so much better. Oh and once he calmed down he started bruxing and boggling while I was petting him! It's been a few weeks since he's done this! YAY!

FYI--concerning mites, I don't think he has them. He doesn't scratch at all and doesn't have any scabs. I think what you may see in the picture is buck grease flecks--there was a TON of it just caked on his skin and fur, poor guy! There is still some there, but not nearly as bad. His skin also show a little discoloration; kind of what I would call "age spots" of the elderly (my 'older' family members get these as well as my senior dogs). Thank you though for bringing that up!


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

Its more the skin irritation and fur quality that would make me treat him as a precaution, ive found rats with icky fur and skin can get in a bad state and its worth doing it. I do keep ivermetcin on hand here though so its quick and esy for me to treat. 

Sounds like hes feeling much better, if you can help him groom and keep on top of it whilst improving his diet you coikd make a real difference to him


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

It's been a week since I last weighed him, and I plan to weigh him today. He's been eating really well, except I'm starting to notice he is starting to turn his nose up to rice *sigh* lol! I fed him his breakfast of rice/eggs/peas just now and after 30 minutes was just picking at it. I took it away and made him a serving of multi-grain baby cereal/porridge and he went straight to eating!

Regarding his coat/fur, since the trim, he has stayed rather clean, and I see him grooming often. I think it had just gotten so bad that there was no way for him to keep up with it. I try to assist him and attempt a brushing once a day or at least every other day, and this seems to help him. He has _always_ had a lot of buck grease, but I think this illness he had sent him over the edge to where he just couldn't keep up with cleaning himself.

He's been off his antibiotic meds for about a week now, and I noticed a little wheezing noise last night when he was spending time with me on my bed. Just now when I fed him the baby cereal in his cage, I could hear a little wheezing as well. I'm concerned that he may need to go back on the meds. I've read on some of the forums here that some rats are never able to fully recover from their respiratory illness and must be on the antibiotic meds for the rest of their lives. Has anyone been through this and is it a good idea or not? I don't want to jump the gun here, but I also don't want to wait until it's too late for the guy before I take him back to the vet. Any suggestions here?

Edit/Update: He weighs 17.8oz/505g YAY! This is a 25g increase in one week. I might be concerned about this being too much, but he was really thin and I think I'm happy with this weight gain. Maybe this is why he's eating a little less, now that he's getting up into a normal weight range. I'm still concerned about the wheezing though, especially when he's stressed (for instance when I weigh him--he really started wheezing then).


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## ratbasket (Apr 26, 2014)

How long were the antibiotics prescribed for? It has to be a really long dose in order to work.


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## autokate (Mar 17, 2014)

21 days for both: baytril and doxy


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