How to Give Medication to a Pet Rat

Having a pet rat sometimes means having to give them medication. The medication you might have to give your rat comes in several different forms and so there are different ways of disguising the taste and making it more palatable so your pet rats will take their medication.

I've had rats as pets for more than 15 years and in that time I've had to give them several different types of medications. These are the best ways I've found to get my rats to take their medications.

Paste and Liquid Medications
The simplest way of getting your pet rat to take their medication is to disguise it in a small piece of food. Paste and liquid medications are the easiest to hide in food because the amount of medication is usually small and can be placed in a small piece of bread, or a small amount of baby food. For some rats they can tell there's something just not right about the smell of the treat you are giving them and I've found a great trick to get them to eat their medicine. I mix it with chocolate syrup or a tiny amount of peanut butter. All my rats loved both of those things so much they didn't even notice the small amounts of medicine mixed in with it.

Tablet Medications
When the medication is in tablet form and needs to be split up into doses, I've found the simplest way is to crush up the entire tablet and separate it into the correct number of doses and store in small pieces of foil until the next does is needed. My veterinarian always told me how many doses I should get from each tablet. When it's time for a dose, just unwrap the foil and add the crushed tablet to a small amount of baby food or yogurt. If the medicine is very bitter and your pet rat won't take their medication, sprinkling a little bit of sugar or try another food to hide it until you find one your pet rat will eat.

It might also be easier to give medication to a pet rat if all the occupants of the cage are getting a small treat at the same time so no fighting over food happens while treating the rat who is getting the medication.

Adding Antibiotics to the Water Bottle
While this may seem like the easiest way to administer antibiotics to a sick rat, I've found that if the water doesn't taste right to my pet rats they might stop drinking it and an already ill rat may become dehydrated because they aren't drinking the water. Also the other rats in the cage will be getting antibiotics whether they need them or not which may not be a good idea. Keep the water clean and tasting good and don't add the antibiotics to it. Dose just the sick rat by hiding the antibiotics in some yogurt or ice cream to help get rid of the bitter taste.

Sources:
http://ratguide.com/meds/basics/giving_medications.php