I’ve been meaning to update about out sweet little guy Bramble for some time now.  He has done us so proud over the last two years.  Having been the poorliest of all his siblings, there were times when we thought he wouldn’t make it to adulthood, never mind old age.  It has been a wonderful, but scary, journey looking after our wheezy little rat.  But our Bramble was a fighter and he went on to outlive all of his siblings and matured into a beautiful, slightly cranky old age boy until he passed away peacefully.

Bramble had been on his own since his adopted brother Chestnut had passed away, and I’m pleased to say he had coped very well with this adjustment.  Bramble has always been a bit of a cuddly rat and he loved nothing more than being curled up at the bottom of a pile of sleeping rats.  But Bramble being a little fighter made the adjustment.  Derek and I tried spent as much time with Bramble as we could, though as an old boy he liked to sleep a lot.  He did still appreciate his meal times though, and made sure he was awake everyday to help us finish our dinners.

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It was silly to have little old Smudge living alone in her rather large cage, especially with two new boisterous young rats in the house.  We didn’t want to move Smudge from her home – even though she spends all her time in her rat igloo – it just didn’t seem fair to her after loosing her rattie sisters.  So, we moved our new arrivals Tula and Tilly in with Smudge.

Smudge is a very easygoing little rat, and she’s not that big so we didn’t anticipate any problems with introducing the young rats to her.  And I’m pleased to say everything has gone smoothly.  We kept the girls separate for a few weeks just to give them time to settle in and make sure they were healthy and then they pretty much moved straight in with Smudge.

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I’m very sad to say our shy little guy Chestnut passed away yesterday afternoon.  It was a very sad end to what had been an exciting weekend of new rattie arrivals.  His passing was very peaceful, and though we don’t know exactly how old he was, I’m pretty sure he had reached a good old age.

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Our new rats Polar, Panda & Tiny curled up in bed

When we were at the pet store yesterday collecting our little girls Tula and Tilly, I caught sight of a beautiful big boy rat.  He obviously wasn’t a baby and I couldn’t resist having a little look at him.  There were two other rats in the tank with him, though I only saw their noses peaking out at me.  I felt so bad for the big guy, as most people only want baby rats and growing up in a pet store is no life for such an intelligent little critter.

As we were there picking up our new girls there was nothing I could do, and I didn’t think Derek would be too impressed if I asked for more rats then and there.  So I decided to wait until we were home and our new girls were settled.  Not that I needed to worry, as Derek was thinking about the big beautiful boy too.

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Tula

I admit we weren’t planning any new additions to our family, if anything we were thinking of taking a break from keeping rats. We have adopted a lot of rats over the past 12 months, many of them old or with health problems, and devoted a lot of time and energy caring for them.  With so many of them passing away, we have been feeling a bit heart broken and exhausted.  It seemed like taking a break and recharging was the best thing to do.  But when I saw a gorgeous little black hooded rat bouncing around her tank yesterday - while on a quick trip to the pet store to pick up supplies - I could not resist.

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Muffin

More bad news I’m afraid.  Muffin had what we initially thought was an abscess on the side of her face.  The lump came up very quickly and burst within a couple of days, as you would expect.  We immediately started bathing it with salt water and giving her Baytril.  Not all of the swelling went down with the burst abscess and worryingly a strong smelling fluid was starting to discharge from Muffins ear.  Her jaw had also gone out of alignment, with her bottom teeth pointing diagonally to the right, making it very difficult for her to eat even baby food.

We consulted our vet, and she speculated that Muffin has some sort of fissure, which was causing the fluid in Muffins ear and probably draining into the abscess.  As we sadly expected, she told us we could do nothing more for Muffin that what we were doing.

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Apricot with her Mum, Daisy and sister, Peach

As I’ve said before, Apricot had been very ill for a long time and over the past month her condition had deteriorated.  She had been scratching her skin a lot more, and she had quite a few open wounds.  They weren’t deep or anything scary, but they must have been causing her some discomfort - not that Apricot ever let it show.  She had also developed a head tilt and was having problems with her balance, so she would often topple over when she was running about.  On top of this she had two tumours, one behind each armpit.

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Our much loved little girl, Sugar passed away quietly yesterday.  Over the past week she had become gradually weaker and weaker, but still enjoying lots of baby food, until her appetite dropped off completely and she was struggling to walk.  I moved her from the cage she shares with her sisters into a very cosy bed I made for her with soft towels in a shoebox.  Being so very weak and with being wrapped up all safe and warm, she wasn’t interested in wandering off.  I kept her in there for a few days, checking on her regally and changing her towels when she went to the loo and washing her face and eyes.

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Daisy’s lump had gotten to a size where it was beginning to cause her problems.  It was affecting the mobility of her arm, if she jumped down off something she couldn’t bring her left arm forward and would land on her face or the lump itself.  The lump itself was also starting to ulcerate; the skin being stretched too taut causes this.  So we made the difficult decision to take her to the vet and have her put to sleep, before she really started to have more serious problems and risk the lump getting infected.

We took her last Friday afternoon and it was a very difficult day, we love our Daisy so much, and she was such a funny girl and has given us many happy memories.  To make things worse we also had to have one of our boy rats, Conker, put to sleep earlier that morning.

Things just aren’t the same without our spooky little girl, she was such a funny little rat but we love her so much.

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Conker chomping on my foot

When we got up last Friday we already knew it was going to be a bad day as we had made the horrible decision to have our sweet little girl Daisy put to sleep.  Her appointment was at 2.30 that afternoon, so we weren’t in the best of moods, but when we went into our dining room, where our boys live, to feed Conker his breakfast of baby food, things got worse.

Conker’s condition had deteriorated severely since we had last seen him at bedtime.  He had pretty much lost all control of his legs, he couldn’t stand up and kept rolling over and he wasn’t interested in his baby food.  We called our vets straightaway who gave us an immediate appointment.

Our vet confirmed what we suspected, that there wasn’t much that could be done for Conker and agreed to have him put to sleep.  It was very difficult, we had been getting very close to Conker with feeding him baby food three times a day, but there was no way we could leave him in the condition he was.  The vet did offer us some treatment, but as is often the case with rats it is guess work, it may work and it wasn’t anything we hadn’t already tried.

Conker wasn’t with us for very long, but he was a lovely boy and we are really going to miss him very much.

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