A sick rat can also be quite fussy. Sometimes they won’t eat their normal food and won’t drink water. Other times, you won’t be able to get them to take their medicine.
How to Get a Sick Rat to Eat and Drink
Here are ways you can help your unwell rat get better:
Feeding
It’s important that a rat eats. They need at least 60 calories as bare maintenance but considering the healing process, you should try and pack as much nutrition in as possible.
Ensure drink can help with nutrition. You can easily make a mush with lab blocks and Ensure by letting the blocks soak for a while until it’s a paste substance.
This will make it a lot easier for rats to eat.
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You can also help boost calories by feeding Nutri-cal (puppy formula). This is simply just a high calorie paste that you can give animals if they are losing weight too fast and isn’t intaking enough food.
Baby food is also something you can use. I usually get a fruit or vegetable type and make sure it’s not bloated with too many artificial ingredients. If the label says “Bananas”, let there only be bananas in there.
You could also make your own baby food if your culinary side so desires.
Make sure you keep a balance between how much solids and liquid type foods you feed your rats. Encourage dry food as well as mushy foods. Too much liquid-y foods can cause your rats to get diarrhea.
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Medication
Your medication from your vet should be a liquid given to you with a syringe. If you find that your rat will not take the medicine from you, you can try to draw up the dose of medication and find a favorable food that he will eat.
Mix the medicine in with a little bit of food and make sure that he gets every little bit up.
Medication and getting your rat well should be the priority. There have been times I’ve just had to hold my rat until he took all his medicine. They’ll forgive you later when they feel better.
