# Rat REFUSING to take medication?!



## thecavycorner (Apr 22, 2014)

I have grown increasingly frustrating with medicating my naked rat Penelope (Penny). She gets an eye infection about once a year (sometimes more) and gets .9ml Cephalexin twice a day for 10 days. Now that may not seem like a lot, but it's basically an entire syringe. I feel AWFUL having to give her that yucky medicine twice a day, and she clearly HATES it. I always give her a yummy treat and a snuggle when it's done, but it seems as though this round of antibiotics is NOT going over well.
She has been on it for about 7 days now, and only has 3 days left. But last night when I was trying to give her the evening dose, she only took about .3-.4ml before completely freaking out. She even BIT ME (this rat has never EVER bit me in her life), and she did everything she possible could to get out of my grasp.
This morning was the same thing, she bit me again, and did NOT want anything to due with the medicine.

I really need to get the full dose in her for the treatment to be effective, but there's physically NO WAY that I can do it.

Does anyone have any tips/tricks for giving medication to rats? 

Ps, for those of you who don't know what Cephalexin is, it's an antibiotic that's supposed to be strawberry/watermelon flavoured but actually tastes like rotten garbage.


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## LeStan82 (Dec 31, 2013)

The only way I could get my rats to take baytril was suck up some ensure into the syringe with the baytril. They lapped it right up and baytril tastes horrible! So maybe try something liquid that taste good.( Not sure if you can use dairy with cephalexin.) Although if it is a 1 ml syringe it would make it hard b/c not much more room in the syringe. But it might be just enough so she will take it easier. I hope you can find some way she will take it...good luck


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## JessYep (Apr 27, 2014)

My rat actually has and eye infection right now and is on oral meds too. Weird...

Well my rat absolutely hates being medicated although she's never been aggressive with me. What I do is hold her with one hand with one finger above her head and the rest under he armpits. She pretty much looks like she's dangling lol she hates it. I think the trick is to not give them a foot hold. When they have places to put their feet, they become more mobile and start to squirm. Also, try not to squirt all of it in her mouth at once. I did that my first time and she was able to spit most of it out since her mouth was full of liquid. Some other things I've heard of is mixing it with a yummy liquid like apple juice or white grape juice, wrapping your rat in a towel and have someone hold her firm, or just wear gloves. I hope this is even a little bit useful hehe. Good luck!


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## Leraine (Feb 21, 2014)

I found this video to be quite helpful. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-_bFMkutKk

I've had to give my rat medications for over a month, and with this method it usually takes me about 10-20 seconds. You can be firm without squeezing the animal, and with this method and some practice, the animal shouldn't be able to bite you. 

Remember to not give too much at a time, and to not point the syringe parallel to their throat. Try to point the syringe to the side of their mouth, instead of shooting the medication straight down because they can choke. She might have bitten you out of fear of choking. 

There's a lot of other ways to make medication more palatable. Cephalexin is safe to take with dairy, which opens up a lot of options. I mention this because if you ever have to give some other medication, before mixing it with dairy foods, you should do a quick google search to see if it's safe to combine that antibiotic with dairy. You don't have to worry about it this time.

Taken from http://www.ratfanclub.org/resp.html which is an extremely informative page on treating respiratory illness in rats: 

"Some ideas for the flavoring are: Ensure, powdered soy infant formula mixed up fairly thin, soy milk, slightly diluted strawberry sundae syrup or pancake syrup (try blueberry), or molasses diluted 1:1 with water.Flavored syrups may also be available from your vet or pharmacist. Some suggestions for foods to put medications into include baby food, pudding, mashed avocado, yogurt, brown sugar and carob powder, honey, peanutbutter mixed with jelly, moistened graham cracker, non-fat cream cheese, margarine, Nutri-Cal, pasta sauce, and as a last resort, ice cream, frosting, cheesecake, or even butterscotch or chocolate syrup!Use only enough food to mask the taste of the medicine so your rat will eat it all immediately.Adding a bit of salt will help counter the bitter flavor of medicines.If your rat refuses to eat the doctored food voluntarily, those in paste form can be smeared on his mouth, or even on the backs of his ears so he will groom the paste off and eat it."

A warning:
You know how peanut butter gets stuck to the roof of your mouth sometimes? 
Some rats have died choking on peanut butter alone. I would NOT advise giving peanut butter alone. It may be okay to give it if you mix it with something else like water, or jelly, or a decent amount of liquid medication. Just make sure it's not too thick! Remember, they can't stick their fingers into their mouths to scrape peanut butter off the roof of our mouths in the same way we can. 

I've heard people mixing meds into cooking dough and rolling it into a tiny ball for the rat to eat. You can maybe drop the liquid onto a cereal she really likes - mine loves cheerios. 

I give my rat some bitter health supplements sometimes. She will refuse if it is given alone with water, but I mix a tiny bit if raw honey into there and she LOVES it. As an additional benefit, raw honey is quite healthy! I have a juicer at home, and sometimes I will make juice from kale, apple, pineapple, carrots, celery, oranges, ginger, berries, and tomatoes. When I mix her bitter supplements in with this juice, she loves it and will lap up multiple mLs at a time, even without me adding any honey.


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## Cloud (Jan 16, 2011)

Put it in tastey things  I have two rats on meds at the minutell, one long term, one short term. I use baby food. Should be ok as long as you mix it in well to disguise the taste!


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## thecavycorner (Apr 22, 2014)

Leraine said:


> I found this video to be quite helpful.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-_bFMkutKk
> 
> ...


Thanks for the tips! I will try some of these things, though she is extremely clever and a very picky eater, so I don't know how well it will work. We'll see!!


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## thecavycorner (Apr 22, 2014)

JessYep said:


> My rat actually has and eye infection right now and is on oral meds too. Weird...
> 
> Well my rat absolutely hates being medicated although she's never been aggressive with me. What I do is hold her with one hand with one finger above her head and the rest under he armpits. She pretty much looks like she's dangling lol she hates it. I think the trick is to not give them a foot hold. When they have places to put their feet, they become more mobile and start to squirm. Also, try not to squirt all of it in her mouth at once. I did that my first time and she was able to spit most of it out since her mouth was full of liquid. Some other things I've heard of is mixing it with a yummy liquid like apple juice or white grape juice, wrapping your rat in a towel and have someone hold her firm, or just wear gloves. I hope this is even a little bit useful hehe. Good luck!


I hold mine the same way, but I can't touch the top of her head as she just had her eye removed and I am worried of touching the sutures. I think she just gets frustrated, and when she is done, she's done!

I might try wrapping her in a towel, that's a good idea!


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## thecavycorner (Apr 22, 2014)

Cloud said:


> Put it in tastey things  I have two rats on meds at the minutell, one long term, one short term. I use baby food. Should be ok as long as you mix it in well to disguise the taste!


I never thought to try baby food! I bought some kind of wet dog food thing that's really disgusting, but baby food is probably way better!


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