# My rat is making a strange squeaking noise? Please help.



## Rat_Lover (Jan 18, 2013)

Hi, so I'm holding my rat currently, she's sleeping on my shoulder. Every once in awhile she will sneeze, or make this weird squeaking like sound. I got her about a week ago, and she was doing fine. What could have caused this, and should I take her to the vet? Oh, and it sounds like this, just not so constant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPdqo0HEtmU She doesn't seem to have labored breathing.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

Ick, impending URI...start looking for a vet. Catching it early is a good thing though, as this can easily go down deep into the lungs and become much more serious/deadly


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## Rat Princess (Jan 28, 2013)

It does sound like a URI, I just got my new rattie last week and he also seemed fine. A day later he began sneezing constantly and the next he began clicking and struggling to breath because he couldn't breath through his nose. Me and my boyfriend loosened up his nose with steam, and he began breathing normally again. My boyfriend, luckily, found leftover doxycycline in his medicine cabinet and looked up how to dose a rattie correctly with it. It has been 4 days since we started the treatment and he sounds almost completely better. We also ordered off of ebay fish doxycycline, fish enroflaxin (Baytril), fish/bird tylosin, and fish amoxicillin. Along with this we bought 2 jewelry scales (1 to measure the rat and 1 to measure the medicine) and 3 1mL syringes. If you can dose you're rat correctly with this (usually goes by gram of medicine/ lb. of body weight) then this might be a better option if you don't have much money. Since these are all antibiotics you cannot let her eat dairy products, especially yogurt with their medicine. Also if your rat is under 4-6 months of age don't use doxycycline or enroflaxin to treat your baby because it can stunt her growth. Using tylosin and amoxicillin is your best bet for a young rat, since tylosin will clear up the URI and calm their mycoplasmosis. Also, amoxicillin is just in case your rat catches a secondary infection, which can be fatal within 24 hours of catching the infection. This website >> http://www.rmca.org/Articles/dchart.htm helped me to dose my baby correctly. If you can't dose her correctly or aren't confident with the amount you are dosing her with, then taking her to a vet sounds like a better option. Good Luck!


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## Rat_Lover (Jan 18, 2013)

Thanks. She's very young, around 6-7 weeks. I have one of those steamer thingys that you use for babies, to help them breath, would that be helpful while we wait? My mum was a nurse, so she might be able to figure out the correct dosage. I'm really worried about her, she usually sleeps curled up in a blanket during the day, but today, she slept next to the door of the cage all day, and whenever she wakes up to eat/drink, she sneezes at least once.


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## Rat Princess (Jan 28, 2013)

I listened to the way that rat was breathing and that's how my fatty was. He recently died while I'm here at college and my brother said he had looked at him made a clicking noise then just passed away, so if your rats noises turn into clicking then it's serious. My baby was clicking and I used steam treatments only when it was too hard for him to breath by himself. The steamer thing could help, but I steam treated my new baby only when he couldn't breath out of his nostrils right. Yeah your mom will be able to dose correctly, and the problem doesn't sound bad at all yet, but if new noises start or even more inactivity, then you should definitely take her to the vet or at least have the medicine to correctly dose her.


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