Rat with one red eye

[bonzo77]

Can anyone shed any light? Our previously healthy 6 month old rat has suddenly developed a red eye. Some time in the last 24 hours. He’s eating, playing and grooming as normal. The eye seems perhaps a tiny bit sunken and the surface appears less shiny than the other. Possibly the surface is scratched / injured but it’s hard to see. He’s opening it as normal, there’s no discharge. He shares a cage with his brother, they do wrestle a bit but I’ve never seen vicious fighting.

Any advice? I’ll probably take him to the vet on Monday if no improvement.

Photo is the best I could get: he’s very wriggly this time of night.

I'm not RatSavvy but -
M,y guinea-pigs get the odd "HayPoke" but the eye goes cloudy rather than change colour .
99% of the time the eye looks watery and half shut , we bathe with salted boiled water and find a hay fragment , if there's cloudiness it will resolve within 2 hours.

Definitely worth taking him to the vet , I'd be concerned that the problem was inside or behind the eye rather than the cornea.

Sweet little boy .

Vet tomorrow. Not Monday. This was how something very serious started with one of mine. Please don't delay. It could be something innocent like a scratched eye, we've had our fair share of those (along with an eye being basically poked out, that was a stressful 48 hours with emergency vets involved) but eye things can be very serious and things like tumors in that region need treatment/removal ASAP.

Thanks. He’s booked with our regular vet at 11.30, but I’m going to call their branch practice when it opens at 9.30 as they have a vet their with an interest in small furries who might be better placed to treat.

No change this morning. Everything I’ve read on google says that he’s probably going to need his eye enucleated.

I’m going to post updates in case it helps someone else.

After much calling about I found a local (ish) vet who is interested in rats. Her name is Harriet and she’s at Village Vet in Potters Bar. She examined ratty very carefully with an ophthalmoscope and dye in his eye. It clearly has an ulcer on the surface and she thinks there is blood between the layers of inflamed cells round the ulcer. There was no blood visible within the anterior eye chamber, but rat was a bit wriggly so she couldn’t confirm than. She explained that she could see from face (apparently there are specific folds in the face that appear in response to pain, and it’s well documented part or ensuring welfare in lab rats) that he’s in pain, so he’s got metacam (NSAID), eye lubrication gel (viscotears) and antibiotic eye drops (chloramphenicol). I bought the last one at boots for about 1/4 the price from the vet, which she was quite ok with. I think I could have got the viscotears the same way and saved another £20. Oh well.

He’s going back on Tuesday to be checked over. He’s been very good about the eyedrops, but getting the Metacam into him was a PITA!

Now that I’ve got a diagnosis, I’ve googled and the images look pretty similar and treatment plan seems the same, though enucleation is still possible.

Pic to follow next time I give him his (2 hourly) drops!

That's great, so glad it wasn't serious! We've had pretty much that befire and they heal very quickly from it :)

@QueenOfCatan I hope this is all it is. Little shit is fine in himself. He wouldn’t pose for a photo yet, he’s been too busy burying his food in DS’s pillow case.

Today’s update: he’s virtually better. On Friday night the whole eye was red. This morning only the middle and front, about 1/2 the surface. Tonight a small bit in the middle near the top. There’s a small cloudy area within that, which I think might be the ulcer healing. But considering that 48 hours ago I thought he would be having the eye removed, I’m delighted!

Good to hear he's on the mend .

I don't know if rats have hay but I know with pigs when the cloudy-ness shows its after the damage is done .
First sign is the eye watering and them scrunching up the eye (they will endeavour to cleanse or have their cagemate cleanse by washing it)

Eyes and teeth problems often co-incide so it;s worth considering (not easy with a little wriggly rodent)

And things like absesses and tumours behind the eye .Can make the eye bulge as it grows .

Eyes are very much a barometer of health , and when you 'know' the animal you can pick up the signs that they desperately try to hide !

Great that you found a Vet with a special interest - literally worth their weight in gold .

I was worried about blood in the chamber of the eye: they tend to result in the eye needing to be removed. Luckily vet thought no tumour and thought he was in good shape. Though fat. He’s much bigger than his friend.

They do have a bit of straw for nest building, but mostly ignore it, so I might abandon that and find an alternative.

The vet was good. She was very knowledgeable especially on recognising pain in the rat. To me he seemed fine, but she said he wasn’t and explained why. When I googled what she said, I recognised exactly what she was saying.

FYI. Googling rat health issues brings up much upsetting info gained from / applicable to rats used for experimental purposes. Not nice.

That's great to hear! So glad that he's looking better Punctures/scratches are a common rat injury to the eye from substrate or just each other, and bumps, one of my boys lost an eye from a serious puncture when he was a few months old (his brother poked it out is our theory!) they removed it and he lived another 3.5 years! Though his brother had the red eye and for him it was a tumour which he didn't survive the op to remove the eye for sadly. Hence my sense of urgency when it comes to eyes! But 9 times out of ten it's something entirely innocent.

We had a particularly clumsy lot so our vets got to know us well over the years we had those two and their friends!