Bertie is probably going to be the one who shocks everyone most, as…: raffins

raffins

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Jul 28, 2009 02:51

Bertie is probably going to be the one who shocks everyone most, as it did me.
Bertie died unexpectedly, suddenly, and to this day I have no idea how or why. He died less than 48 hours after the last pictures I took of him and uploaded to this journal. As you can see from those pics, he was the picture of health.
He'd not been ill, he'd been perfect. Then I came out to find him dead in his hammock, looking as if he'd died in his sleep. There was no sign of any struggle and he had his eyes shut and looked like he'd just gone to sleep and not woken up. He was a young rat with no prior illness, from a good breeder, and the absolute LAST rat in the group that I'd expect to be losing.

The only possible reason I can even begin to think of is the heat. It had been hot the day he died, unusually so, but none of my other rats were affected. It just doesn't really add up to me. He died in the evening, when it was far cooler, and he was in his fleece hammock, which he would surely not go in if he was hot? Its been hotter than that in the past too. But it does cause sudden deaths in rats so I can only think it was that, but in my heart it doesn't seem right.
Perhaps he just had a heart attack. It happens to young, healthy humans too sometimes.
I probably should have had a post mortem done on him, but it was the last thing on my mind when I found his body :(

I also lost Giblet, only a couple of days after Bertie.
He seemed to recover well from his surgery. His wound was still infected slightly, but seemed to be shrinking and I was sure he was out of the danger zone. A few nights prior, he'd been pinging about and playing and being full of beans. Then late on friday night he became lethargic. I assumed it was the heat, particularly after what happened to Bertie. I made him comfortable and planned to take him to the vet in the morning. By morning, he was much worse, seemed to have trouble breathing and died shortly after.
It was like he had a heart attack. His breathing seemed to go from perfect to deadly SO fast.
At the time, I got very worried that I might have had the SDA virus in my colony, after two unexpected deaths. I put all my rats onto aureomycin just in case, and its clear now I did NOT have SDA. So it means Giblet died through complications from the op, possibly infection that spread to his brain. I feel terrible about it. If I'd not put him through an op, would he still be here? He had a sore eye, but is a sore eye better than being dead? I had him operated on because I know I wouldn't want to live my life with a sore eye that I couldn't see through; I thought a removal would make his life happier.
I never expected this to happen. Apparently the vet didn't either; he was very surprised.
But I have been told that hairless have poor immune systems and often take things a lot harder than a 'normal' rat. This does seem to be consistant with my experiences with them.
Giblet was always very small, never grew to a normal size, and his brother Ace died of suspected heart problems, so I do wonder if he was the 'runt' and had a heart defect anyway which was why he was so small.
These deaths occured about 2-3 weeks ago.

Then I lost my little Gordon.
As we know, he had a tumour behind his eye, confirmed with an x-ray, and I knew he only had a short time left. But a few days back, something must have ruptured behind his eye as he had blood coming from his eye and nose, and it was all over his front legs, and he was having trouble breathing because his nose was full of blood.
It was his time. Anyone who saw him would agree. I booked him for a pts as soon as I saw him.
He still had a fair bit of strength in him, he wasn't laying comatose or anything. But this was a problem that was NOT going to get better, ever, only ever worse. So in situations like that, I euthanise at the first sign of discomfort.
Its acceptable, in my mind, to hold off a little if there is a chance of recovery. But with things like inoperable tumours, you keep them happy until the day when the decision is made for you, and it was in this case.
I bawled, I don't mind telling you. Gordon was a lovely boy. Bit dim, bit of a pain in the arse in his youth, but so sweet and naive. And once again, died far too young thanks to shitty breeding.

Finally, I lost my little Lollipop.
This happened only 2 days ago. She wasn't quite her usual self one day. She would eat her choccy drop but she seemed tired and not her usual perky self. I got her out for a run with the girls and she preferred to lay back and not do much, which wasn't like her.
Within hours, she was dead.
I knew she wasn't well, and was going to take her to the vet for a check over, though in all honesty, they'd have merely put her onto baytril and told me to keep an eye on her, as she was showing no clear signs of anything specific. Thats what vets tend to do with rats that are off colour without obvious clues.
And I could have put her onto baytril myself if I wanted to, but didn't think it would help.
I actually assumed she may have had a mild stroke, as she seemed in a similar state to some does I've had who have had minor strokes. And her sister Matilda was pts at a very young age for re-occuring strokes, so it was in the line. I also considered a possible pituitary tumour. She wasn't dehydrated, it was her behaviour more than her appearance that made me know she was unwell.
So I knew SOMETHING was up, but not something that would kill her.
I went to check her late that night and she had already died. What is most confusing about her death, aside from its sudden onset, is that she appears to have what looks like bile around her mouth. It was all over her bedding, too. I know from work what bile looks and smells like, and this had to be it. It was a yellowy/green fluid that smelt awful.
My mum thinks she may have ruptured an organ, or had some kind of problems going on inside her that never showed any signs until it was too late.
We're not talking a gradual decline here, we're talking about a healthy rat one day and a dead one the next. Some kind of ruptured organ does seem reasonable to me, as it was almost as if she was slowly poisoned from within. Perhaps she had tumours that were not detectable, and one of those abscessed. I really don't know.
I feel all my rat's abdomens every other day or so for lumps and growths, and felt nothing in her. In fact, nothing was amiss with her until her illness began, and it all happened so quick :(
She was from a very unhealthy line, with Matilda having to be PTS under a year of age because of strokes, and her other sister, Roux, has an inoperable tumour which will be the death of her in, I suspect, a month or so.
And all these girls are under a year old. Horrible.

But you have to look at the reasons you do this. If I only focused on the bad, I'd shut down my sanctuary now and give up. But there are good things too.

I have acquired 5 new additions since my last update.
Its been a very busy time of late. Im not sure why the sudden influx.
After only getting Bunty and Mirabelle and Dara not that long ago, I now have 3 more boys, and 2 more girls to add to that.

Lets start with Aggie and Kashmir.
These two came to me from a woman who didn't have time for them any more. She seemed a nice enough person, just kinda didn't really prioritize her animals, apparently. I think she'd gotten them for her daughter, but no-one was really interested in the rats anymore.
Aggie is a girl, and Kashmir is a boy. She'd had them both for over a year (Aggie is apparently 1, Kashmir is 2) but kept seperate. Im not sure why someone would get one of each gender and condemn them to a life alone rather than just getting a pair of the same sex who could live together. Maybe she originally did have a cage mate for each, but they died and left just one boy and one girl. I can't actually recall the story.
But either way, they'd both been alone, if not forever, then for a long time, living on top of a shelf!
I was paranoid that, despite me grilling her on this subject, she may have put them together and I'd end up with a pregnant doe. You always have to be warey of any member of the public who has one of each gender and then suddenly wants rid of them.
But she was true to her word; they'd never been together.
She met me outside a DIY shop, and had each one in a tiny tissue box!
Aggie is a striped roan, and Kashmir is a siamese. My mum named Aggie, and I named Kashmir after the led zepellin song. Both of them are lovely, snuggly, friendly rats.
Aggie in particular is exceptional, for a doe. She is the most affectionate girl I've ever had. The vast majority of girl rats I've owned have been little live-wires for whom the extent of their affection to me was the odd brux on my lap or half hearted lick. But Aggie is a little lick monster, she's SO loving.
Whatever you might say about their past lives, Aggie and Kashmir have obviously been handled because they're both well used to people.

Aggie went in with my girls well, as she is so sweet natured.
Kashmir took a little longer to get in with my boys, as is usual. He was one of those rats who, on a one to one with another rat, thought he was the boss and would puff his fur up and try and be the big man. But once in a group with loads of them, he was terrified and went into a complete shut down to try and block everyone out.
Rats like this are not bad rats, they just need to know where they stand.
He soon learned his place, and while not a high ranking rat, he has a nice life and prefers to hang about with the gentler, older boys. He is particularly close to Warlock as he's old and gentle and pretty much leaves everyone alone for the sake of an easy life. Whilst Warlock seems merely to tolerate Kashmir, I think he enjoys his company really.

Around a week ago, I also picked up two new buck kittens, Vinnie and Huey.
I had a call from a small vet practise in norwich who had come into work one morning and found two rats and a pregnant cat dumped on them anonymously. People are great, aren't they?
They kept the cat, spayed her to remove the kittens, and were going to rehome her. But they had never dealt with rats and didn't have the facilities for these two. I said I'd take them, and picked them up whilst in norwich with Roach a week or so back.
They're both so young, probably 10 weeks or so? Huey in particular is very small.
They're your typical pets@home rats, EXACTLY the kind of rats they breed: one roan dumbo and one capped dumbo. In fact, Huey, the capped one, looks almost identical to Roach's rat, Murray, who was originally a pets@home rat. They could be related, they're so similar. Probably originated from the same rodent mill.
It does make me wonder how someone could dump rats so young, though. I mean, these aren't rats someone has owned for 6 months or so then got bored of them and dumped them....these are rats that they can't have even owned for more than a couple of weeks, and they've already decided they're bored of them?
They're both nervous and unused to handling, but they do not bite or have any problems with manners. I don't get people sometimes. What is going through their head when they buy a baby rat and then dump it mere weeks later? What did they expect? What was it that disappointed them about them?
But their loss is my gain.
I recently added yet another extension to the boy's cage, so its like a bloody huge palace now! Vinnie and Huey were released into the cage from the extension where they'd been living, yesterday.
They're both young enough to be accepted fairly easily, but Vinnie is a real antagonist.
He will chase the other boys around and try to nip them, and as such, he is finding his first days quite hard.
Henry, the alpha, is chasing him about non-stop trying to reprimand him. And I don't have a problem with it; he needs to be told. Henry isn't picking on him for no reason; he's telling him off for being so cocky and letting him know that he needs to recognise his place in the group....and its not where he seems to think it is.

Finally, I recieved a new girl, Bella, on saturday.
Bella, formerly Dusty, was from a lovely woman who clearly cared about her but just didn't have the time to devote to her. She also wanted her to be with other rats.
I called her Bella as it is Italian for beautiful, and she really is. She's a gorgeous rat, a mink berkshire. I don't have any photos of her yet as she is so new.
She's quite a dominant girl, and her acceptance into my girl's group is coming along slowly, but each day the group seems a little more happy with her being there, and there is no bloodshed, just the usual girly bitching.

Finally, Reggie went in for his castrate on friday. He was becoming a real problem in the group. He ripped a hole in Warlock's neck, and was totally unreasonable in his rage. He was a really scary rat when he was angry; all ridiculous hissing and bundling and biting and spikey fur. He was so pumped full of hormones that he actually looked wet on his back where he was producing grease to mark his territory. A classic overly hormonal buck, and he was only getting worse. I'd always known he had potential to be a problem rat, and it reached a peak when I came outside to find every buck I own huddled in the waffle house in fear, while Reggie stomped about the entire rest of the cage.
I appreciate that he lost his friend, Bertie, and that he had a lot of newbies to cope with, but this behaviour had been in evidence long before that. He actually even nipped me when I put my hand into his cage. He was gorgeous outside of the cage, completely licky and submissive to me. But he hated anyone being in his territory. He didn't BITE me, he could have done. He nipped me. But again, a sign he was a little ball of hormones.
So he was castrated, and did wonderfully. He's recovered perfectly, left his wound well alone, and was the model patient. He's still in his hospital cage right now, and I don't expect immediate results as it can take a few weeks for hormones to settle down, but hopefully he'll be back in the group soon.

So, after all that, here are some pics! Lots of them!

This is Huey. I named him after Huey Morgan from Fun lovin' criminals.

Huey with Vinnie

Lenny cuddles. I love my Lenny.

Vinnie

Wood muncher.

Kashmir. He's about 2, and he's quite lazy. I don't know that he's used to a lot of free range time since he seems to spend 3 minutes exploring, then flops down to sleep!

Gordon in the background, one of the last pics of him.

Lovely Lenny

Loadsa raffins!

FOOD GOES HERE:

Freddie, Bowie, Kashmir, Huey.

I love Warlock. His back legs have gone now because he is an old boy, so he kinda shuffles. I call him my little seal, since he is black and squashy and kinda waddles along. But he is still so full of life and doesn't seem to realise he is disabled!