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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Sugar

Our sweet, and sometimes bossy, girl Sugar is beginning to slow down quite a bit and is a little unsteady on her feet.  We are assuming it is old age, as she wasn’t a young girl when she joined our family over a year ago.

It is both a bit sad to know she is getting old, but at the same time, with all the traumas of loosing out younger rats, good to know she has reached old age makes us feel very proud.  I don’t like to think of loosing her as a year is such a sort time to spend with such a special little girl, but I think Derek and I have made her very happy.  We love spending time with her and will up until the end, but we know it is coming, just not when.

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Our sweet girl, Daisy

This is a very hard update to make, while Daisy is fine and healthy she has a lump and unfortunately because of its location we’ve decided not to have it removed.  We first noticed a pea-sized lump on Daisy’s neck not long after Pearl died.  It was hard enough finding a lump on another rat after both Pearl and Apricot had both had lumps removed, and of course Pearl dieing, but also the fact it was on her neck.  We took Daisy to the vet and she confirmed what we were concerned about, that a lump on a rat’s neck is not the easiest thing to remove.  There are a lot of blood vessels in the neck and if the lump is attached to one of these the chances of the rat surviving the surgery can be very slim.

To make matters worse, the lump increased in sized very rapidly further adding to our concern that it may be attached to an artery.  With everything that has been going on with our little rats we decided not to have Daisy operated on, as loosing her during surgery is just too much to for me to contemplate.  For now Daisy is her normal happy self.  The lump is very big, but she is not letting it bother her at all, she runs around and climbs with the rest of her rattie family.

Daisy with her family in happier times

Daisy has always been a strange little rat, she’s a bit like a ghost.  She’s very quiet and she sneaks around like she’s in her own little world.  We suspect she may be deaf, which would explain why she doesn’t respond to things like the other rats do.  We love her very much, not just because she’s mum of Apple, Bramble, Lime, Peach and Apricot, but because she’s our ghostly little girl.

We are treating Daisy extra special and spoiling her with baby food, which we use to give her daughter, Apricot, her daily medicine so Daisy gets the spare.  While Daisy is not the sort of rat you can cuddle she does appreciate food, so she is very pleased about being spoilt.

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Conker peeking out from a cushion

Since he joined our family Conker has been doing really well settling in, getting used to Derek and I and just learning what fun it is to come out and have a run-around.  He’s a really lovely boy, though he did develop one naughty habit of nipping Derek’s feet while he was out playing.  We were really starting to enjoy our new guys, even with the sad loss of Apple and Lime, Chestnut and Conker were very sweet and entertaining.

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Peach (front) and her mum, Daisy.

Peach was very much a little live wire, always running around and bouncing, despite all the health problems that have plagued her most of her short life.  Sadly in the space of two days Peach’s condition deteriorated and she passed away.  It was such a shock, one day she was bouncing around and playing, and the next she wouldn’t eat and suddenly looked so frail.

Derek and I were with her when she passed away, so we at least know she was peaceful and were able to hold her.  Just loosing our sweet little Peach is hard enough, but with all our other sweet guys who have passed away recently, including two of Peach’s brothers, it is doubly difficult.

Still, we are looking forward to spoiling our little rattie family over Christmas, maybe letting them have a bit of Christmas pudding.

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