My rat is sick after Baytril. Is it an ear infection or a brain tumor?

Symptoms may be any abnormal behaviors, circling, aggression, seizures, head tilt, pain, scratching the ear, altered mentation, confusion, unwillingness to eat/drink, etc. I'm so sorry for the loss of your rat. You may wish to consider a necropsy for confirmation of the cause of her illness.

Your rat could be suffering from either an internal ear infection or a brain tumor, the later is more common in rats over 1.5 years of age. You need to take your rat to the vet ASAP in order to get it treated, if it is an ear infection, then a course of antibiotics should resolve it.

Considering that these signs could be compatible with an upper respiratory tract infection, yes you can use it, but if the signs persist despite a week course of this antibiotic a veterinary check up is absolutely needed. Dosage you can use would be 5mg/kg orally every 12 hours. Please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation (where you can post pictures ) if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.

I would recommend to give them a full course without missing dosages as prescribed by your vet. If signs persist more than 48 hours since new start of treatment a check up would be necessary. The signs you are describing could be compatible with a gastrointestinal and possibly a respiratory tract infection. Please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.

Based on what you are describing it does sound as if Lucy is very ill. I would recommend either having her rechecked at your veterinarian or asking for a referral to an exotic capitalistic that can perform more specialized tests on small mammals like blood work, x-rays, and ultrasounds. Based on the age of your rat she may have something more serious going on like an internal infection or cancer. In the meantime, try to encourage Lucy to eat as best you can by offering her her favorite foods and/or syringe feeding her some baby food. I'm sorry to hear that she is not doing well and I hope your vet can help you find answers. I hope this helps. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Best of luck.

Hello. It sounds like Yuki would benefit from the antibiotics, too. Baytril is a very good, broad spectrum medication. Ask your vet if you can start giving Yuki the medication. The unknown here is whether this is viral or bacterial, or if this is even something more insidious like a fungal infection or even cancer. You might try some steam therapy or nebulization with saline. The next step would be to obtain chest x-rays to evaluate what is actually going on in the lungs. A change in antibiotics is a possibility & I would recommend Doxycycline possibly with the addition of azithromycin, & especially for Dambo, you might need to add theophylline to open up the respiratory passages. Personally, I would try to stay away from steroids for now. Contact your veterinarian to discuss what other options are available for your little pets. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

I'm sorry that Carrie is not feeling well! Head tilts in rats are commonly caused by ear infections, however, other diseases such as certain cancers, or stroke can cause these signs. How quickly treatment needs to be started really depends on what the underlying cause is, so it is impossible to say what will happen in the next two days. If Carrie is having difficulty moving around, it may help to provide some moistened food (pellets with water on a small plate) for her so that she can access food and stay hydrated. In my experience, head tilts can progress rather quickly, but are not necessarily painful and most animals do well with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medications. I hope this helps and that Carrie gets well soon!