Expert: Sandra Todd - 12/8/2007

Question
QUESTION: I have a hairless rat (almost two years old) who has always been skinny, but
never as skinny as now. I can see her ribs through her skin. I assumed this was
because the other rat she lives with was stealing food, so I separated them. She
still didn't eat. Also, her skin is peeling all over and her eyelids are bruised. I
seriously think something is wrong, but I have no clue what. Can you help?

ANSWER: What kind of diet is she on? Do you keep a staple diet down for them at all times? Rats should be self feeders. They are not known to over eat and only eat when satisfied so keeping it around at all times is fine. This way, you can be sure that if they always have a full dish, all the rats will get their fair share.

The peeling is very common among hairless rats. She has dry skin and sometimes hairless rats are prone to eczema. You can take care of that by rubbing some lotion in all over her skin such as aloe vera or vitamin E cream. I do think that her skin is thinning with weight loss and you are seeing the translucent coloring through her eyelids because they are thinning from weight loss, which may explain the bruised or bluish tinge you notice on her eyelids.
Also, it is possible she may be having some kidney problems as well. Do you have a vet that you can see that is good with exotic pets and rats in particular?


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: My rats have access to food and water at all times. It's the Nutricycle stuff
they sell at Petco, so I'm sure it's balanced enough. I was wondering though,
is it possible that her teeth are too long? They don't seem too long to me but
I don't have a general length to compare it too. And if her teeth are getting in
the way of her diet, is there a way I can file them down without taking her to
a vet? I don't live in an area with many rat specialists.

Answer
Hi Rachel

Hairless rats require a diet a little different than furred rats. Normally, furred rats should not have more than between 15 to 18 percent protein and low fat foods without corn products in the ingredients. Corn products contain an unwanted fungus that is found to produce carcinogens. There are few commercial foods sold on the shelves of the big pet store chains that meet the nutritional requirements rats need. What occurs is that the rat will pick out their favorite pieces if your offering a mix, and they will eat just a few of those certain pieces and leave the rest to rot. If they ate every different type of food in the mix they would probably get the required daily vitamins needed to sustain optimum health, but with a mix, they don't.
O am not sure what nutricycle is, if its a mix of seeds and kibble or just all one kibble or pellet. If thats the case and its not high in protein and fats and the first ingredient isn't corn (if it HAS to be there, its best it is listed at least second, preferably third) that means its passable.  The better choices would be harlan teklad rodent blocks or Oxbows regal rat. Mazuri lab blocks aren't the top of the line but out of all the foods sold at these big chains, that would be the better choice.  With hairless rats, they do require a tad more protein in their diet since they have a super fast metabolic rate. They also lack a thymus gland, which can cause them to have a little bit of a weaker immune system so its a good idea to avoid stress in his life and stress can come from of course being sick but also being alone (loss of cagemates) or even moving to a new cage. My silly rats were all stressed out when they moved from a trashy little cage to a massive ferret nation. I would talk to them (yeah, I know, I am weird! LOL) and remind them that they only had a half home made 4 story skinny cage and now they have a cage as big as a refrigerator and why stress?  But they did, always wanting out for at least two days. They even began to produce excessive porphyrin which almost prompted me to put them back in their old cage but it all worked out. So yeah, the little stinks stress easy, furred or naked!  As for her teeth: Rats are monophyodont, which means they have no baby teeth and only have one set of teeth their entire life. Healthy rat teeth have an iron-containing pigment which cause them to be nice and orangish yellow. This is all good and they darken with age. They have a total of 16 teeth, with four of them being open root incisors. Due to the open root, the incisors grow continuously up to 4 inches per year. Again though, under normal circumstances, bruxing is a natural way to grind them and same for when they eat. Eating actually helps grind them as well because of the way the incisors move, almost like chiseled scissors, and this also helps keep them ground down too.

When they don't grow right, the bottom incisors usually grow sideways and start to rub the upper part of the rats mouth causing sore and maybe even an abscess. You can tell right off if there is a problem. The lower teeth are very long and that is normal, but if you want actual measurements, I would have to guesstimate the bottom incisors of a normal healthy adult rat to be about 3 to 4 mm long  the lower ones are about 6 to 7 mm long which again shows you how much longer the bottom are from the top.
One way to help your rat if your worried about her bottom teeth being too long after this post, you can buy her some lowfat low protein dog biscuits and let her chew on those. Some people let their rats have bones from chicken or beef bones but I always worry about splinters since rats can gnaw through most anything with time!  
If you really want to clip her teeth, you can use a special clipper that are guillotine type dog clippers for the top and regular nail clippers on the bottom. However, if you have a rat that wont hold still and your not sure how to do this you can clip her tongue right off. Not to scare you but I have seen some bloodied messes from rat keepers racing to the clinic with a rat that has a bloodied tongue from teeth clipping gone wrong. I would not attempt it if your not sure.

Meanwhile its best that you do find a vet for future use. I bet you knew I would say that. LOL!  You may need to make a drive out, sometimes an hour or so, but it is worth it if your rat is really sick.  I would find one now and jot the name and address down, perhaps telephone them to find out the exact location etc...all for future use. This way, if your rat is really sick you wont have to panic in a scramble to find a good vet that sees pet rats.
If you tell me your location and the cities nearest to you I can suggest a few people.

Hope this helps

Sandra