Case for the emergency vets?

[~Em~]

Unsure of what to do here

Come home to find one of my girls laying flat as a pancake at the bottom of her cage. She has been absolutely fine right up until now. She's displaying signs of a resp infection, but with one symptom I've never seen before - pulling her head back and straining her eyes as though about to cough up phlegm. I've also never seen a rat go down this quickly with resp infection before! Usually builds up from a small rattle in our experience.

I've contacted 2 emergency vets in our city, the only 2 that I know of and both are a bit useless. The fee would be in excess of £100. One of which we've been to before and they didn't have a clue about rats. The other one, I just described her symptoms over the phone a minute ago and they said they would 'most likely put her down' - what?!! She doesn't need to be put down!

What do I do? We have baytril and metacam supplies here that we've tried to get her to eat mixed with nutrical on a bit of bread? Is it adivesable to persist with this then take her to our regular vets tomorrow? Or does this sound like something more serious?

[Neotoma]

It does sound serious and any collapse like that I would normally take to the vets immediately. However, I do have good out of hours care available.

Did she take the baytril and metacam, and is she still stretched out and straining for breath? It actually sounds like a potential form of choking.

[~Em~]

She's not completely stretched out anymore, I have her out with me and she's toddling around the bed to get comfy. Wheezing every so often. Appears to be alert. We don't begrudge paying for any treatment when it comes to our rats, but for them to not have a clue and probably at best give us the same meds we already have, at worst euthanise her...

[MistressSadako]

Could she be choking?

[~Em~]

I don't think it's choking. Unless choking is accompanied by the typical respy warbling sound. She has a bit of porphyrin round her nose

[annc]

If the only out of hours ones are as useless as that you're probably best giving her Baytril and Metacam and seeing your usual vet tomorrow - and making sure she keeps cool.

[Neotoma]

If she continues to improve then you might be able to wait. I would normally always say emergency vet in this situation, but if the emergency vet isn't actually going to do anything useful, then it might just potentially stress her for no gain. However if she deteriorates again you should probably risk it, and be firm with them.

In the long term, it might be worth having a hunt round the city to see if there is a decent vet's practice that does their own out of hours service - it is so much better. You wouldn't necessarily have to use them for everything, but being able to access a vet who has your animal on file is a huge advantage, and it's also often cheaper, as the practices tend to have a more service oriented ethos.

[Jimi+Milo]

It sounds like what one of my boys used to get, his airways would get blocked so he couldnt breath properly. He'd totally pancaked but restless aswell, he kept moving about trying to get comfy then crash out every few seconds. The retching you describe sounds exactly the same as him. The first couple of times it happened it cleared after a few hours (we assumed he was just choking), but after speaking to someone on here I found out it was his airways getting blocked. Our vets only charge about an extra £15 for emergency trips so its never crossed my mind since to leave it to be honest. If shes struggling to breath I wouldnt want to leave her over night like that though.

Edit: Sorry she

[~Em~]

Hi guys, thank you for replying to this thread. Within an hour she was completely fine as though nothing had happend! Bizzare

She must have been choking as you were suggesting a bit of food stuck that she was able to dislodge herself maybe?