# Sudden rat Death



## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

I got four pet rats from a trusty breeder a few months ago. They were all perfectly healthy at the time, and I'd like to add that I used pine bedding. After a few weeks, one of the rats, Nimbus, started sneezing. We thought it was due to the fact that we were using pine bedding, so I switched to shredded paper. The sneezing stopped for the most part. During this time, another of my rats, Rex, started getting some odd red stuff(porphyrin?) around his right eye. Rex is doing fine, although he still has the stuff around his eye. 
Now, just tonight, Nimbus began acting lethargic and limp. His heart was beating very hard. Then he had a sort of seizure, which lasted about 15 seconds, and he died. Immediately after death, some mucus stuff came out of his nose. 
I honestly have no idea what happened to Nimbus, and don't want anything to happen to any of my other rats. Does anyone know what happened? And what about Rex with the porphyrin around the eye? (There isn't that much porphyrin anymore, but still some.)
If anyone knows about Nimbus' cause of death, or has suggestions about Rex, please tell me!
(I am very sorry if I posted this in the wrong thread, I am new here. Thanks!)


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds like Nimbus had a heart problem. You need to report what happened to Nimbus to your breeder so she can take note, and act accordingly. What cage do you have and how many times do you clean it? What do you use to clean the cage? Is the porphyrin just a little around the time your rat wakes up or pretty much all the time?


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

Thank you.
I have a large wire bird cage that I found off of Craigslist. (I've made my own levels.) I do a full cleaning about every week, and do smaller cleanings every day or two. To clean it I use Wild Harvest Cage Cleaning and Deodorizing Spray for birds and small animals. Sometimes I use water to soak things. I should probably add that yesterday I used 409 as an alternative, since I was out of Wild Harvest.
For Rex the porphyrin usually around pretty much all the time, but today it was all gone. I'll have to see if it comes back.
This morning, another one of my rats was acting similarly to Nimbus before he died, but slightly more active. He's still alive, but is weak and his heart is beating pretty hard, so I'm not really sure.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

The 409 cleaner is really really bad for your rats. Even if you rinse it, some will stay and damage their lungs. If you spray it and do not rinse it, it is even worse. Take all your rats out of their cage, and do a good cleaning of your cage and anything else in it with dish soap and a brush + dish soap for the the bars of the cage.


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

Thank you so much. I will do that. 
Is there anything I can do to help him get better?


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

Avoid any scents near him. Don't use air fresheners, candles, or smoke near your rats...If you use the bird product, make sure it is very well rinsed. All those scents will make a rat have porphyrin around their eyes and nose. After a while, it will damage their lungs and make them much more likely to get a respiratory infection. Hopefully, after you clean his cage well, he will feel a little better. If you use fleece, like fleece liners (bad in my opinion as many rats will sleep under it), or hammocks, wash them with SCENT FREE detergent on sanitize. Your rat(s) very likely already has a respiratory infection, so I would bring them to a vet now. Definitively hard breathing is a really bad sign


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

Make sure your rat stay hydrated. Does he drink and eat well on his own? If not, you will have to give him some baby foods, or veggies and fruits, or Ensure, rats love coconut water... so he doesn't get dehydrated. If your rat isn't used to get veggies and fruits, start slow or he could get runny poop. Good luck. I hope your rat gets better. Again a vet visit would be best because chances are he needs antibiotics.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

I believe the 409 cleaner was responsible for your rat death. I thought heart problem first but since you told about the cleaner, and two rats exhibiting the same symptoms in such a short time, I now believe it was the cleaner I'm so sorry


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

Thank you so much for the help.
I've thoroughly cleaned out the entire cage and everything in it. I've put the rats back in the cage, and right now all three are enjoying some lettuce and tomatoes. Patronus(the one who got sick this morning) is eating and drinking just like the others. He seems to be getting better.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I'll agree with 409 not being my first choice in cage cleaning products. Even if I'm pretty sure it's certified for use in food prep areas. So, unless your rat drank it, it didn't kill him. Moreover I don't think rats would drink formula 409. If formula 409 killed rats, exterminators would be using it.

In any case, a friend of mine is a chemist who worked on the formula, and if I see him I'll ask him, but seriously anything toxic enough to kill rats in one single application wouldn't be permitted in a common household cleaner. We used 409 a lot years ago and we lived in an apartment that was overrun by mice for a few months... We live trapped the mice and aside from a particularly stupid mouse that drowned in the sink, they all looked perfectly healthy when I re-homed them.

That said... it still wouldn't be my first choice as a cage cleaning product. Now, maybe someone reused the spray bottle and put something else in it... I like 409 spray bottles and often re-used them for other liquids. 

Environmental things that will kill your rats might include pesticides like bug bombs or bug spray or a defective gas hot water heater or furnace. And I have lost animals when neighbors bug bombed their apartment without telling me or the landlord sent in exterminators when we were out. A friend recently rented a house and her rat got suddenly sick, the symptoms look a lot like a stroke, she's looking into what the landlord was doing about the ant problem in the house... In any case pesticides are really not good for rats... and can have a knock down effect on some rats. As can certain poisons. 

But beyond that I'm guessing... If your other rats look sick and have looked sick for a while, it might be something infectious and a vet visit might be a good idea. You might want to call your breeder and ask if she has had issues with her rats recently. She might have the same problem in her rattery and might have already solved it. 

Although I'm currently using aspen... I used pine bedding for decades, as long as it is kept dry and free from mold and mildew, it won't usually cause sneezing except right after you put it in and the dust is still flying around. As to smoking, it won't bother normal healthy rats at least not so much as you would notice... As to perfumes and candles and such... My wife lit a cheap imported votive candle and it dripped into my 20 gallon fish tank, a few drops not only killed all the fish, but also killed the plants... so I know some of those things are very toxic... but whether even a toxic waste candle can kill a rat in a ventilated room sounds pretty extreme... Unless your rat ate such a candle... then it's dead for sure.

Your problem might be infectious, or environmental or it can just be a heart attack... I can't even guess... *But I'll bet you didn't kill your rat by cleaning it's cage once with Formula 409. So, I don't think you should feel guilty...* and you might want to keep looking for the problem or consult a vet if your other rats don't look right...

As a footnote, and to prevent a senseless debate... There's a pretty wide gap between things that aren't good for us and things that will make us sick... and things that will drop us on the spot. Same for rats...

A bad diet for example is not good for us... Living in a house with lead dust flying around will make us sick over time... and a bullet, can kill us instantly. Much is written about the things that make rats sick, and even more about what is not good for them... and rat owners love to obsessively debate what's best for rats... No normal healthy rat has ever dropped dead from being placed on pine bedding, being exposed to second hand smoke in a household setting, or sniffing a common aromatic cleaning product. These are the kinds of things that can, or might affect your rats health over time and contribute to other health conditions, and might even have dire long term consequences but they won't drop a rat like a bullet will... 

Rats live in most of the most polluted places on earth... they survived the H-bomb on Bikini Atoll, they are literally designed to survive and thrive where nothing else can... You want to do what's good for your rats and keep them safe from bad things... But if there's something so toxic in your house that can drop a rat the way you described it's pretty much time to get out. 

You are either looking for something that's noticeably out of place around your rats like rat poison or maybe a clogged gas furnace chimney... (check your carbon-monoxide detector) or ant bait stations or cheap imported candles your rats may have eaten or your rats are sick... or maybe a perfectly healthy young rat died of a heart attack... it happens, just not often.

When my rat was poisoned by a mushroom, I gave her milk thistle powder to protect her liver... it's easy to get at any pharmacy, just buy the caps and open them and feed the contents to your rat. Mine liked it and thought it was tasty... Obviously it doesn't help with all poisons, but as we don't know what happened, it shouldn't hurt. 

Best luck.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

Rat Daddy said:


> I'll agree with 409 not being my first choice in cage cleaning products. Even if I'm pretty sure it's certified for use in food prep areas. So, unless your rat drank it, it didn't kill him. Moreover I don't think rats would drink formula 409. If formula 409 killed rats, exterminators would be using it.In any case, a friend of mine is a chemist who worked on the formula, and if I see him I'll ask him, but seriously anything toxic enough to kill rats in one single application wouldn't be permitted in a common household cleaner. We used 409 a lot years ago and we lived in an apartment that was overrun by mice for a few months... We live trapped the mice and aside from a particularly stupid mouse that drowned in the sink, they all looked perfectly healthy when I re-homed them.That said... it still wouldn't be my first choice as a cage cleaning product. Now, maybe someone reused the spray bottle and put something else in it... I like 409 spray bottles and often re-used them for other liquids. Environmental things that will kill your rats might include pesticides like bug bombs or bug spray or a defective gas hot water heater or furnace. And I have lost animals when neighbors bug bombed their apartment without telling me or the landlord sent in exterminators when we were out. A friend recently rented a house and her rat got suddenly sick, the symptoms look a lot like a stroke, she's looking into what the landlord was doing about the ant problem in the house... In any case pesticides are really not good for rats... and can have a knock down effect on some rats. As can certain poisons. But beyond that I'm guessing... If your other rats look sick and have looked sick for a while, it might be something infectious and a vet visit might be a good idea. You might want to call your breeder and ask if she has had issues with her rats recently. She might have the same problem in her rattery and might have already solved it. Although I'm currently using aspen... I used pine bedding for decades, as long as it is kept dry and free from mold and mildew, it won't usually cause sneezing except right after you put it in and the dust is still flying around. As to smoking, it won't bother normal healthy rats at least not so much as you would notice... As to perfumes and candles and such... My wife lit a cheap imported votive candle and it dripped into my 20 gallon fish tank, a few drops not only killed all the fish, but also killed the plants... so I know some of those things are very toxic... but whether even a toxic waste candle can kill a rat in a ventilated room sounds pretty extreme... Unless your rat ate such a candle... then it's dead for sure.Your problem might be infectious, or environmental or it can just be a heart attack... I can't even guess... *But I'll bet you didn't kill your rat by cleaning it's cage once with Formula 409. So, I don't think you should feel guilty...* and you might want to keep looking for the problem or consult a vet if your other rats don't look right...As a footnote, and to prevent a senseless debate... There's a pretty wide gap between things that aren't good for us and things that will make us sick... and things that will drop us on the spot. Same for rats...A bad diet for example is not good for us... Living in a house with lead dust flying around will make us sick over time... and a bullet, can kill us instantly. Much is written about the things that make rats sick, and even more about what is not good for them... and rat owners love to obsessively debate what's best for rats... No normal healthy rat has ever dropped dead from being placed on pine bedding, being exposed to second hand smoke in a household setting, or sniffing a common aromatic cleaning product. These are the kinds of things that can, or might affect your rats health over time and contribute to other health conditions, and might even have dire long term consequences but they won't drop a rat like a bullet will... Rats live in most of the most polluted places on earth... they survived the H-bomb on Bikini Atoll, they are literally designed to survive and thrive where nothing else can... You want to do what's good for your rats and keep them safe from bad things... But if there's something so toxic in your house that can drop a rat the way you described it's pretty much time to get out. You are either looking for something that's noticeably out of place around your rats like rat poison or maybe a clogged gas furnace chimney... (check your carbon-monoxide detector) or ant bait stations or cheap imported candles your rats may have eaten or your rats are sick... or maybe a perfectly healthy young rat died of a heart attack... it happens, just not often.When my rat was poisoned by a mushroom, I gave her milk thistle powder to protect her liver... it's easy to get at any pharmacy, just buy the caps and open them and feed the contents to your rat. Mine liked it and thought it was tasty... Obviously it doesn't help with all poisons, but as we don't know what happened, it shouldn't hurt. Best luck.


For started, I never implied that she should feel guilty- she simply didn't know, she didn't do it on purpose to hurt her rats.

If you had read the post carefully, the 409 was spayed on the cage, not soaked or rinsed ( since it says that only sometimes the cage is soaked in water)...The other things are worth investigating too, but the 409 product is the most likely culprit here. It is highly toxic, and rats have very frigile respiratory systems. Sure some wild rats survive the most horrific things, so? Some animals always survive...we are talking about pets here that are artificially selected to be pets, meaning they aren't as strong as wild rats that survive natural selection- not even close. 

Pine bedding is bad for rats, everyone knows that but you apparently.

Finally something bad for us will kill or make a rat sick much faster that it would make us sick due to the facts that 1) a rat will ingest more of it proportionally for its weight than we would, and 2) rats fast metabolism will make something more toxic to them everything else equal- rats heal super fast when it comes to a wound for instance, but once they get sick they can and will in many cases go down really fast too. Once rats gave damages lungs, the chances of them getting a respiratory infection is much higher. And that's exactly why I advice her to go see a vet in case her rat needs antibiotics.


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

Thank you guys both for your concern.
I would love to bring my ratties to the vet(if it was my choice, I would) but unfortunately it is not my decision, and the rats will not be brought to the vet.


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

I also have plastic cage liners that the rats chew on frequently. Is this harmful? Could it be the source of the problem?
The levels are plastic too, but the rats don't chew on those.


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

I don't think that's the problem though because they've been chewing on it for a while, and nothing happened.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

annabeau said:


> Thank you guys both for your concern.I would love to bring my ratties to the vet(if it was my choice, I would) but unfortunately it is not my decision, and the rats will not be brought to the vet.


Hopefully he will get all better by himself. Sounds like you did a great job with the cage cleaning and the hydrating foods Keep us posted on his progress. know that in case of a respiratory infection, you can buy the antibiotics online without a prescription- it would cost much less than a vet visit, and you would have antibiotics for lots of rats for quite a long time to, lol. Anyway, if you ever wanted to know where to buy them, you can PM me- I'm always willing to help ratties and their parents


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

annabeau said:


> I also have plastic cage liners that the rats chew on frequently. Is this harmful? Could it be the source of the problem?The levels are plastic too, but the rats don't chew on those.


No the plastic chewing is not a health hazard. Rats chew it but don't swallow it anyway


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

Did you go to a pet store recently (within the past two weeks or so) and/or handled other rats that weren't yours?


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

Thank you!
I have not handled other rats, or gone to a pet store, but I do however have other pets, and have been around dogs recently. (Three guinea pigs, a hamster, a parakeet, and two fish)


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

annabeau said:


> Thank you!I have not handled other rats, or gone to a pet store, but I do however have other pets, and have been around dogs recently. (Three guinea pigs, a hamster, a parakeet, and two fish)


You're fine no worries. I was looking at some rare possibility of something airborn and virulent you could have brought from a pet store. Best wishes to you and your rats


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

To put everyone's mind at ease heres the product safety data on Formula 409

https://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=brands&id=3027089

See... nothing lethal or super toxic there...

When our rat ate the poison mushroom the vet told us that rats can metabolize poisons better than most animals.. and that the type and amount of mushroom our ate would likely be sufficient to kill a dog, but she gave our rat break even odds. Rats also metabolize alcohol faster than humans according to an alcohol researcher who worked with rats and rats were used in those smoking studies back in the 1960's the ones that said smoking was safe.... Not to mention they were used in the Revolution safety studies... In fact if you want to prove your product isn't toxic, you pretty much use rats to do it. There's a reason people selling iffy products use rats instead of Guinea pigs or other animals.... because rats pretty much outlast everything else in the world.... When the world ends there will be rats and roaches... not much else...

I've not only read the studies on pine bedding but also used it for decades... and have friends and acquaintances that used pine bedding and some still do... I'm not saying that pine is good for rats... but I can unequivocally state that it won't kill a healthy rat or make it sick in a normal ventilated cage for a brief exposure. Nor have I ever seen a rat to sneeze from it once the dust settles. 

I'm not suggesting that people should do things that aren't good for their rats.... we should all want to do better and not just get by... But, we are looking for something that dropped healthy young rat in it's tracks... that's significant. We are looking for something really nasty not something that's "bad for" or "not good for" rats.... Like a malfunctioning furnace that's puking out carbon-monoxide or toxic candles or industrial strength pesticides or a virulent biologic... or maybe the rat did have a heart attack. 

I don't know the cause... I'll let anyone and everyone give it their best guess... I just chimed in to say what it isn't likely to be... Mostly because I'd feel awful if I thought I had sprayed something that killed my rat.


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## Fu-Inle (Jan 22, 2015)

It could've been bad genetics or plain bad luck. There have been many cases of perfectly healthy humans having heart attacks or strokes and dieing, and it can happen to rats too.


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## annabeau (Sep 25, 2016)

All three rats are doing very well. Patronus is back to normal, and he and I just had a small game of tug of war over a piece of paper towel. (He won. ) I didn't see much porphyrin on Rex's eye today, but if anything gets worse with that I'll ask about the antibiotics.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

Happy to hear your rats are doing better Definitively keep an eye on them as their lungs might have been damaged which could make them more likely to get mycoplasma/pneumonia in the future. Thanks for the update


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