cages with mesh flooring on all levels
Paul
weeks. I have bought a 3-story cage from a pet shop I was told is ideal for
rats. Since I have found out that mesh floors can cause rats to develop a
condition called bumble foot. Could any of you give me some advice
concerning flooring in rat cages? Currently the floors are covered with
cardboard until I can find a more suitable replacement.
I have just read Rosemary's post titled 'Best Christmas Present' and was
wondering what the floors are made of in your cage.
Also could someone tell me if a human cold can infect rats?
I am grateful for any advice to a new owner.
- Paul
paghat
wrote:
It is a popular myth that wire floors cause "bumblefoot." RUSTY wire may
do so because the rust is both abbrasive, & plays host to the bacterias
that infect abrasions or injuries of the foot. Bumblefoot is actually
pododermatitis, behaves like leprosy, & is incurable. Once a rat has
pododermatitis, wire floors may exacerbate the problem because rats no
longer have feeling in their feet & will leap from high places onto the
wire continuously reopening the painless soars. I'm reposting an article
with citations, because the myth of wire CAUSING bumblefoot is deeply
ingrained in the amateur community & even citations cannot convince the
fully superstitious.
------
REPOST: Pododermtis aka Bumblefoot aka Soar Hocks:
Bumblefoot & soar hocks are lay terms for pododermatitis. Many people are
under the mistaken impression that "wire cages" & especially wire floors
CAUSE bumblefoot -- it's a myth that is repeated & repeated & never apt to
be weeded out of the amateur community, though the belief causes the
contagious infection to be spread because the mistaken "treatment" is to
remove all the rats from contact with wire rather than to separate
infected animals before others are infected, & sterilize all surfaces for
staph. My main source for the information below is the National Research
Counsel's Committee on Infectious Diseases in Rats and Mice, Washington,
D.C.; plus articles I've photocopied over time out of veterinary &
laboratory vivarium journals. I tried to find some good stuff on the net
to cite as well, but all I could find were the amateur FAQ sheets that
blame wire flooring exclusively & fail to mention the actual cause
(bacteria). Debbi Demarcan's book acknowledges first the role of bacteria
-- one of the rare cases of a lay expert getting it right -- but then
cannot resist carrying on about wire bottoms & fails to mention that
radical cleanliness, keeping the environment dry, & periodically
sterilizing surfaces to eradicate staph are the actual preventative
measures.
Since the actual culprit is a bacteria, it is contageous in its early
stages (infected rats need only be separated temporarily until the
contageous period is over). Careful studies in guinea pigs & rabbits have
shown that wire cages DO NOT cause bumblefoot & the incident of outbreak
DOES NOT INCREASE with animals living on wire cage floors vs those living
on wooden floors or amidst shavings. The exception is a single study in
which animals kept on RUSTY abrasive wire had a SLIGHT statistical
increase in podermatitis; the rust harbors bacteria & the roughness of the
rust abrades the feet. Filthy, moist shavings are even more apt to harbor
the bacteria meaning cages without wire floors, but not kept dry & clean,
are by far the greater hazard.
However, once the bacteria is established in the foot, all feeling in the
foot is lost. Injury & reinjury will hasten the progress of the disease.
Wire provides no protection for the foot, especially if the animal is
overweight or prone to leaping about while no longer able to tell how much
pressure it is putting on its own damaged feet. An animal that already has
pododermatitis can therefore be at risk of continuous re-injury living on
a wire-bottomed cage.
The infection will in time cease to be contageous but leaves the foot with
a sort of leprosy that persists for the life of the rodent. Thus rats no
longer in the early active phases of bacterial infection, but in the later
stages of permanent soarhocks, do not need to live separate from other
rats.
Pododermatitis is "multi-factorial in etiology" to quote the veterinary
jargon, meaning ANY claim of a single cause won't always hit the mark in
all species or in all outbreaks. It's sometimes caused by virus
infections, occasionally by fungus infection, & often in tandem with one
or another myco bacteria, inducing papuals of the foot, not painful but
disfiguring. Bacterial pododermatitis in farm animals has been
effectively prevented with vaccines but no one is working on a rat vaccine
equivalent. The bacteria is known to harbor in dirt & feces, suggesting
that rats' capacity to walk in their own feces is a contributing factor
that can be LESSENED by a wire floor. Usually present in rats with
pododermatitis is staph infection, which is HIGHLY contagious, & apt to
occur in filthy cages of any stripe. But some papers admit an uncertainty
that Staph is the root cause which may instead be Myco (which does not
harbor exclusively in the lungs & can cause foot lesions & arthritis)
and/or viral, but the overt contagion is nevertheless most commonly staph.
Some diseases including those associated with Pododermatitis are unevenly
dispersed regionally. A Japanese study tracked one outbreak to an original
entrypoint in Japan, but it has since spread. It means there might be
outbreaks in, say, Flagstaff & appear to numerous ratkeepers with a
similar cause & outcome; but the experience of alarmed Flagstaffers will
have no baring on rat owners in, say, Seattle if it is not the same mix of
cause or disease strain. This is also why in some areas the disease is not
seen at all while in other regions bumblefoot is extremely common. I have
kept rats for over 40 years & never experienced pododermatitis in any of
my populations ever; but in other regions of the United States, it is rare
that anyone would not have encountered it from time to time.
Pododermatitis is usually the outcome of a long period of systemic
depletion of the immune system coming in the aftermath of other illnesses,
or from general poor care, or from undetectible subclinical infections
that are not so connected to quality of care (subclinical myco for
instance). Wet litter is the single most important factor -- staph can
harbor indefinitely in wet litter waiting for some foot injury to tramp
by. Obesity is also a factor, not necessarily (though possibly yes)
because of the extra weight of the animal but because obesity is a sign of
the ongoing improper care that has been wearing down the immune system
long before Pododermatitis erupts. The greater implication is that correct
diet & exercise is a preventative; whoever lets their rats get overweight
are probably doing much else wrong as well, diminishing their rats' immune
system (& so of course will want insistantly to blame "wire floors" since
it otherwise risks guilt of confronting the possibility of ongoing & daily
care failures).
I could find no controlled study on cage effects on rats per se, but there
are a handful of comparative studies for rabbits & guinea pigs, & scores
of studies on small caged livestock. A 1996 article by Rommers & Meijerhof
reported on a controlled experiment to see if actual outbreaks of
bacterial "soar hocks" was greater for rabbits on wire than on slats or on
synthetic mesh. They detected a marginal difference in favor of the wood
but did not regard it as so significant as to justify changes in
rabbitries (most of which place rabbits on wire-bottomed cages so that
their considerable production of urine does not remain in cages). The
disease occurred in ALL cage types (they did not test glass). The
synthetic mesh was wire-like, by the way, without even the slight
statistical numbers against it. Guinea pig studies (i.e., Ishihara, 1980)
indicate that Staphylococcus aureus is aggravated by RUSTED wire cages;
pododermatitis was not otherwise influenced at all by wire; & I was
reminded of the widespread sentiment that if a kid falls on a rusty nail
he risks blood poisoning because animal urine adheres to rust, but punk
kids pierce themselves with clean unrusted nails without fear. The same
for wire floors; cleanliness is the factor, with or without wire.
There are other studies, not conclusive, but none really condemn a clean
wire-bottomed cage when scientific eyes are applied to the situation. Some
authors (Besselsen, 1993, on cavies) do not suggest wire cages are a
hazard unless "rough & soiled" but does say the wire cage will increase
the problem AFTER a bacterial staph infection has erupted so that the
animal must live thereafter on a wooden floor kept scrupulously dry. A
foot injury NOT caused by infectious lesion will heal in the manner of
normal wounds but those in which staph was transiently harbored will have
irreversible leprousy-like aftereffects of swollen disfigurement & loss of
feeling in the foot or feet. Aggressive antibiotic treatments & radical
cleanliness will clear up the infective agent & stop the rat from being
infectious to its fellow rats, but the harm done the individual animal is
for life.
-paghat the ratgirl
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/
Rosemary
> I have just read Rosemary's post titled 'Best Christmas Present' and
was
> wondering what the floors are made of in your cage.
The floors are wire mesh, but I'm going to put cardboard on some so I
can see if the rats favour them, and if they do I'll cover all the
floors.My rats are litter tray trained anyway, so all I have to worry
about is changing the cardboard when it gets urine-soaked.
Rosemary
paghat
<mentally_su...@BLOCKhotmail.com> wrote:
I wouldn't cover the bottom floor -- the less contact rats have with their
feces & urine the healthier they will be, & this is the primary reason TO
have a wire bottom. But do put something on the shelves where rats will be
more inclined to spend time, & bare wire isn't all that comfy (neither are
shavings by the way -- many rats shove shavings or hard bits of paper
bedding out of the way if they have to sleep on a floor, & prefer 100%
cotton ragging or strips of paper for their bed, or will even prefer to
sleep on a block of wood if they can't climb up to somewhere high & dry).
DON'T use cardboard as it will quickly be soaked with urine. Go to a
sewing & cloth bolts shop, where you can get a washable plastic mesh
called "Plastic Needlepoint Canvas." This lets urine through rather than
accumulating where rats walk or sleep (& bacteria-ridden pissy areas of
the cage are the real source of pododermatitis). Needlepoint mesh is
easily cut to size with regular scissors & can be made to fit perfectly on
the upper tier shelving, perhaps fastened from the outside with
mini-clothespins, & are easily removed when they need to be cleaned.
The main reason not to have a wire bottomed floor is if you have nursing
mother rats. Pinkies are small enough to slip through entirely or get
their blind little heads stuck in the floor, if they are accidentally
dragged out of nests on their moms' nipples. Often the wire floors are
completely removeable so are optional.
-paghat
Rosemary
> "Rosemary" wrote:
>
> > "Paul" wrote:
> > > I have just read Rosemary's post titled 'Best Christmas Present'
and
> > was
> > > wondering what the floors are made of in your cage.
> >
> > The floors are wire mesh, but I'm going to put cardboard on some so
I
> > can see if the rats favour them, and if they do I'll cover all the
> > floors.My rats are litter tray trained anyway, so all I have to
worry
> > about is changing the cardboard when it gets urine-soaked.
> >
> > Rosemary
>
>
> I wouldn't cover the bottom floor --
I agree - letting waste collect in the living area is a bad idea.
> the less contact rats have with their
> feces & urine the healthier they will be, & this is the primary reason
TO
> have a wire bottom. But do put something on the shelves where rats
will be
> more inclined to spend time, & bare wire isn't all that comfy (neither
are
> shavings by the way -- many rats shove shavings or hard bits of paper
> bedding out of the way if they have to sleep on a floor, & prefer 100%
> cotton ragging or strips of paper for their bed, or will even prefer
to
> sleep on a block of wood if they can't climb up to somewhere high &
dry).
What I was thinking of was leaving it mostly as wire (which is plastic
coated) but with bits where they like to chill out covered to let them
rest their feet. They sleep in a hammock, anyway. The bottom floor is
going to have their litter pan and stuff on it anyway, because I like to
keep them trained to the litter tray even if droppings will fall through
the mesh, cause it's easier if I ever have to put them back in the other
cage. Besides which, I think it's pretty natural for rats to do that
anyway.
> DON'T use cardboard as it will quickly be soaked with urine. Go to a
> sewing & cloth bolts shop, where you can get a washable plastic mesh
> called "Plastic Needlepoint Canvas." This lets urine through rather
than
> accumulating where rats walk or sleep (& bacteria-ridden pissy areas
of
> the cage are the real source of pododermatitis). Needlepoint mesh is
> easily cut to size with regular scissors & can be made to fit
perfectly on
> the upper tier shelving, perhaps fastened from the outside with
> mini-clothespins, & are easily removed when they need to be cleaned.
Is cardboard really so bad if it's replaced every day? I should imagine
it's better than having mesh which even if it lets urine through will
start to collect it and give off ammonia. I haven't the time to wash
plastic sheets every day.
> The main reason not to have a wire bottomed floor is if you have
nursing
> mother rats. Pinkies are small enough to slip through entirely or get
> their blind little heads stuck in the floor, if they are accidentally
> dragged out of nests on their moms' nipples. Often the wire floors are
> completely removeable so are optional.
IMO even if wire doesn't cause bumblefoot it can hardly be the most
comfortable of floor surfaces so it's essential to have places rats can
go when they're tired of the wire.
Anyway, I'm sure it'll be much better than the single-level cage they're
in at the moment. And besides, I can have some gerbils in the old cage,
now :-)
Rosemary
Mark Tomlinson
news:paghat-2612...@soggy72.drizzle.com...
> It is a popular myth that wire floors cause "bumblefoot."
>
> -paghat the ratgirl
Agreed. I have five multilevel cages with wire levels, plus I allow my
brood to climb around on top. In the years we have had dozens of rats, we
have never - ever - had a case of "bumble foot".
--
Mark Tomlinson
"I'm not a trouble maker; I am a catalyst for change."