How to treat a Rat with respiratory infection – Baytril + Racepinephrine nebulizer
Tommy had a severe respiratory infection, so bad that he was unwilling to eat or drink. Desperate to find a way to get antibiotics to Tommy’s lungs and save his life, I did a pubmed search to see which antibiotics, if any, had been delivered via nebulizer. Novel delivery techniques are usually tested first in rats. I got lucky:
Biopharmaceutical characterization of nebulized antimicrobial agents in rats: 1. Ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin, and grepafloxacin.
And wouldn’t you know it: Baytril (Enrofloxacin ) is essentially the veterinary equivalent of Ciprofloxacin, and a very good choice for respiratory infection in rats, even effective against Mycoplasma. Bingo!
Fortunately, I had plenty of Baytril to hand and a nebulizer. I even had some Racepinephrine, which I believed would open up Tommy’s airways and help the medicine penetrate more deeply into his lungs. So, I I treated Tommy several times over the course of a day, as in the video.
And, it was miraculous: after the first few treatments, he was able to drink so we could give him medicine and rehydration fluid. And the next day, Tommy was able to eat, drink, even run around a bit. He was actually breathing fairly normally, deeply and freely, without any crackling sound. Tommy had been given a second chance at life!
If you have a rat with a serious respiratory infection, and you are about to give up on him/her, I suggest you try this, first. It worked for Tommy, and it might work for your rat, too.
Here are some links for the stuff I used to treat him. I will post another video showing how I prepare the inhaler.
Baytril/Enrofloxacin (this is one seller of many.) I used a solution of 100mg Enrofloxacin in 15ml boiled water.
Nebulizer (this is the one we bought, but there are many choices):
Racepinephrine/Asthmanefrin
