A sad update on Ferret and Otter

Mole, Otter and Ferret

We uprooted our little family and moved from Cambridge to Ipswich. The three boys coped very well with the disruption of the move. As their cage is so big they could not travel in it, they had to spend the day in a small cat carrier. All three boys already had tumours of varying sizes before we moved. Ferret’s was the most advanced and we knew we would soon have to make the difficult decision to put him to sleep.

All that we wanted for him was to see our new home with his brothers, a bit soppy I know, but there you go. Otter was also having a problem with his tumour, he was scratching at it and making it sore and bleed. We are very lucky that there is a really good vet very close to where we have moved, so we booked our sweet little boys in and had them put to sleep. Initially Mole was lost without his brothers, but at least he had their company for the trauma of the move. We have been spoiling the little chap rotten, giving him many bits of human food. He has never been a big fan of our attention, but he loves our food.

We know that a lot of people choose to have their rats operated on at the first sign of a tumour, but we have given this subject a lot of thought and spoken at length to several vets about it. Having an operation for any little animal is a very traumatic experience and in many cases the tumours will return. Taking into account the age of our boys, we decided that surgery with their poor start to life and the disruption of our house move would have been too much for the boys to cope with. This way we were able to say goodbye peacefully, and enjoy the memory of them in our new home.