Giving Medicine When dosing Medication, a "cc" is the same measurement as a "ml". When using "The Health Care Booklet" by Debbie Ducommun, all medication doses in there are figured out to "per pound" of rat. So if you weigh your rats using an ounce scale, there are 16 ounces in a single pound. So a typical female would be 3/4 of a pound and a typical male would be 1 1/4 pounds. With most medication, including all antibiotics, you use to treat your rats with, if your rat hasn't shown any improvement by the end of the third day of treatment, STOP using that medication and immediately try a different medication, because that particular medication is not going to work. You should always see at least some improvement in your rat within the first three days if the medication is going to be an effective one against the problem. One exception to this rule is when using Ivermectin to treat mites. Antibiotics, if they are working and your rat is showing improvement, should always be used for a specific set length of time. Even if your rat seems back to their normal, healthy self within a few days, you should continue to give the antibiotic for the following amount of time... For antibiotics used on Myco (such as Baytril and Doxi), they should be given for at least 4 weeks minimum. For antibiotics used on secondary infections (such as Amoxi and Trimeth), they should be given for at least a full 2 weeks minimum. If your rat is back to his/her healthy self and you've given them the FULL treatment of antibiotics then they should be good to go. If their symptoms start to reoccur within a few weeks, put them back on the antibiotic they were on for another full round of treatment. If the symptoms return yet again after that, you probably need to keep your rat on that antibiotic for life due to chronic myco. Always get your medications in the oral liquid form, and make sure your vet mixes the medication with a flavored additive (such as cherry) to make the medicine taste good for your rats. Most vets can do this for you. A typical bottle of medicine and syringe that you will get from your vet. Any medicine that you get that needs to be refrigerated usually is only good for a couple weeks before it goes bad. Any medicine you get that is stored at room temperature can usually last for a good six months before it goes bad. Be sure to find out from your vet how a particular medication should be stored. Mix up the bottle of medicine thoroughly and then take out the prescribed dose for your rat in the syringe. The bottles my vet uses leak if I shake them up with the cover on, so I take the cover off and shake up the medicine using my thumb to cover the opening. If it tastes good, which it should with the flavor additive, your rat will most likely lick it right from the syringe. Just put a drop in their mouth so that they know it is tasty, and then slowly squirt it out as they lick it up. If mixed with tasty stuff, most rats will lick the medicine right off the syringe for you. You can also force the medication down by restraining your rat and squirting it into their mouth. Stick the syringe into their mouth just to the side of their front teeth and angle it so that your squirting the medicine in just slightly to the left or the right of the back of their throat. You want to get the medicine in the back of your rat's throat so that they swallow it, but you do not want them to choke on it. Be gentle when forcing medicine into your rats mouth. Be very sure that your rat has swallowed the medicine before putting them back down to play. If you don't make sure that they have swallowed it, your rat could just spit the medicine out of their mouths when given the first opportunity to do so. If you keep holding them, they should eventually swallow it. Check their mouths to be sure. If you have a rat that absolutely refuses to take the medicine as is, you can try hiding it in food. However this should be used as a last resort, as it is more difficult to keep track of what your rat has taken, dose wise. (Avoid using dairy products when mixing medicine with food as this can affect the effectiveness of some antibiotics.) Many different foods can be used to hide the medicine taste. Try using a liquidy food so that you can still dose it using the syringe. Some examples of foods you could try are baby food, Nutra-Cal, honey, strawberry syrup, and Ensure just to name a few. Anything with a strong taste to hide the medicine. Another way to hide medicine in food is to squirt a dose of it into a piece of sweet pastry or on a cheese cracker or something of that nature. This is harder though because you need to make sure your sick rat gets and eats the entire piece of food. The best way to do this is to separate out the sick rat into a travel cage and give the medicated piece of food to them there, keeping them there until they eat it all. If the medicine is bitter, add some salt to help cut it's taste. If a rat gets a bad taste in it's mouth, it will drag it's mouth across the floor trying to get rid of the taste. Rats have excellent memories, and if they have a bad experience with a particular type of food, they won't eat it again. So if you try and hide something in honey and it doesn't work, don't try and use honey again, because they will remember the icky medicine taste in it. A wonderful way to train your rats to be more receptive to medicine in the future, when and if the time comes when you need to give it, is to start getting them use to the syringe early on. Buy a syringe from the vet or a pharmacy, and once a week or every other week or so, give your rats some baby food, such as squash, using the syringe. This way they quickly associate the syringe with a tasty treat and are more willing to eat from it when you later use the syringe to give medicine. To clean your syringe, pull it apart and wash both pieces with cool water and then lay them out separately to dry.