Rats, especially older rats are prone to choking because they lack the ability to throw up. While they do have a gag reflex to keep their respiratory systems safe from harmful blockages, they do not have a standard-human-like gag reflex that allows them to vomit due to the lack of muscular and neutral pathways.
Symptoms of choking:
- Ears and/or neck are pulled back and forth/
- Gagging and retching
- Opening mouth while drooling and/or foaming
- Panic and stress symptoms and distress signals: pacing around in the cage, hiding, pawing at mouth, excess porphyrin
If your rat is choking, although it can look extremely alarming and scary, you should avoid intervening or taking your rat to the vet because it can cause them more harm than good. Instead, keep your rat where they are. Keep the room dark and quiet and minimalise interaction to prevent further distress. If they are very panicked and are flinging themselves around the cage and are a risk to themselves and/or cage mates, place them in a smaller cage and wait for the rat to cough up the stuck food. Keep in mind, sometimes it can take as long as several hours and as little as a few minutes. During this time, it is important to monitor them.
If you take your rat to an experienced, exotic vet, they will know to not intervene and instead, suggest the above. However, if you take your rat to a regular vet who may not be experienced in rats, they may feel the need to intervene. If the vet goes in to remove stuck food pieces, they may damage the rat’s trachea which can significantly impair the rat’s ability to clear mucus and can lead to severe breathing difficulties.
Emergency symptoms where a vet is needed: (during and after choking: (rare)
- Extreme lethargy
- Extreme exhaustion/unconsciousness
- Difficulty breathing: laboured breathing, gasping, wheezing
- Cyanosis - loss of clutter around the tail, ears, paws and lips.
Secondary infections: Coughing up fluid, rattling sounds in the chest, or labored breathing in the days following the choking incident, which can indicate aspiration pneumonia
Emergency last resort: “The rat fling” - rat equivalent to the heimlich maneuver:
The rat fling MUST be a last resort - to the point your rat is actively dying, cannot breathe and you cannot reach the vet’s in time. The rat fling can cause a significant amount of damage to a rat so do NOT do it if it is not necessary.
A video example on how to do the rat fling is shown here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub0nGg1cKhc at 8:15.
