My 5 week old fancy rat appears to have a broken foot.?

Question

she was running away and i reached out and grabbed her and i thought i heard a pop. she is no not using that foot. the paw appears to be in a closed position and she lifts it when she walks. she whines if you touch it. don't know what to do?????

Answer 1

Vet.

Answer 2

That happened to my rat once. I didn't actually see the injury occur, but she wasn't using her back foot. She kept it lifted when she walked. A lot of people are telling you to take her to the vet, but honestly, they can't do much. You can't exactly put a cast on a rat! Anyway, there is a chance that its not broken, but just sprained. My rats foot healed in a few days, so apparently it was just a sprain. If your rat appears to be in serious pain, then maybe the vet could give it some pain medication, but thats about all they can do. If it is broken, the rat can usually just learn to live with it. You could maybe put her in a single level cage (if shes not already) so she doesn't try to climb on that foot. The best thing to do would probably be to just keep an eye on it, and if it gets worse or swells up, then take it to the vet.

Answer 3

Are you seriously asking this in place of taking it to the vet?

How did you manage to break its foot grabbing it, anyway?

You don't sound like you are responsible enough to keep this pet.

Answer 4

You need to get her to the vet right now.

It sounds like you may have just popped something out of the joint.  Visiting the vet quickly will ensure that the foot can be fixed & saved.

If a bone is actually broken, it will most likely need to be amputated.  Don't worry if this is the case: rats do VERY well with three legs.  

Regardless, you need to get this taken care of ASAP.  Leaving it the way it is will cause unnecessary pain and greatly increase the chance of a deadly infection.

Answer 5

Bring it to a veternarian and if there is none arond take him to the doctors office or just let it heal on its own it should take about a few weeks thats what I did when my gerbil's arm broke!(sorry that happend)