New babies

Just thought I’d add a happy post in between the obits.

I am collecting two new girls next Saturday. After losing my girls I felt it was important to start looking for a couple of youngsters to add to the group to keep Jemima company for when the inevitable happens to my 3 old ladies (which seem fine at the moment). Tethys Rattery in Yorkshire had a litter of lovely marked babies advertised on the NFRS forum and someone from Glasgow was offering a home to some of them so I cheekily asked if they’d mind playing ratty chauffer and collect a couple for me as far as Glasgow and I’d collect them from there. They said that would be fine so I contacted the breeder and she kindly agreed to let me have two capped girlies, one agouti and one black.

I’m really looking forward to getting them. They are my first breeder rats and their pedigree arrived today by email which I got all excited about! They will be here purely as pets but their breeder said one of them (the agouti, I think) might be showable, so I will probably try showing her.

The two capped girls on this page are mine: Tethys Kittens, have to think of some names for them now

Nutmeg – 20/09/07 – 31/07/09

Nutmeg was one of Sugar’s babies. She was the smallest of the litter, not runty but definitely smaller than her siblings. She was originally going to a new home with Saffron & Fudge but the home fell through and by the time it did they were about 12 weeks old and I decided to keep them!

Nutmeg was a bit nervy as a youngster and not keen on getting picked up. She retained the dislike of getting picked up and was a nightmare to get hold of at the end of free-range, though I think it was more mischief than nervousness as she got older! When she was very little (less than a month old) she fell off my hand and went down behind a unit in the bedroom. I couldn’t get her out, eventually coaxing her into a empty Lactol tin they used as a bed. When I picked up the tin, she calmly walked straight out and up my arm, bless her.

She became a little hooligan as she got older and you wouldn’t have known she was the runt, she got as big as Sugar & her sisters. She was never a people rat but she was well happy in her group of other ratties and could be surprisingly bolshy when she wanted.

Baby Nutmeg at about 19 days old

And at about 10 weeks

Hiding in the wine rack

And looking for trouble!

And the last photo I took of her.

Bye Bye little girl, play hard with saffron & Fudge and the other girlies.

Bye Bye Rupert

I had to have Rupert PTS on Tuesday. About 3 weeks ago, a week before we went on holiday I noticed he was drooling. I took him to the vet who decided he had a swollen tongue and gave him a steriod jab & some Baytril. After a week he was still drooling slightly but didn’t look any worse, so off we went on holiday, leaving him in the capable hands of the parents-in-law. When we got back last Friday I noticed he had a lump in his cheek. The earliest I could get him in at the vets was Tuesday and by then his mouth was bleeding and he was starting to loose quite a bit of weight and was also dehydrated (I discovered at the vets). I left him with them and they knocked him out to see what the problem was and they discovered a tumour in his jaw bone.

He was such a lovely rat, big & cuddly and so soft. Poor Jools is now on his own, though doesn’t seem as depressed as what I thought he might be. Him and Rupert were always snuggled up together, he looks very lonely on his own.

I do have some happier news, but will put that in a separate post.

Bye bye girls

Northern Lights has had to say goodbye to two of the girlies. Nutmeg was PTS on Friday as she was just not improving and looked so sad and confused.

And I found Saffron dead yesterday. She’d been losing a bit of weight but was still very lively, the first one at the bars and climbing up on my lap at free range time. She came out to say hello to our visitors on Monday night, then she didn’t appear last night when I fed them. I found her curled up in her bed. She never visited the vet in her life and to be honest I wish they could all go like she did, at home in bed with her friends.

So now we only have 4 girlies. Sugar has outlived all of her daughters. I am going to have a cage change around today so I can pack up the Tommy and without wanting to sound really depressing I’m going to have to think about getting a couple more girls so Jemima won’t be left on her own if the worse should happen between now and the new year, which is the earliest it looks like i’ll get my ratties for breeding.

I will dig out photos and do proper obits for my girls later.

Nutmeg :(

Ok, i’m back with bad news again. Nutmeg is very poorly. On Tuesday night I found her all wobbly and un co-ordinated again. So I took her to the vet yesterday and she was given an injection with a mix of steroids and frusemide as the vet said her chest was very raspy and her heart didn’t sound good. Today I took her back as she hasn’t really improved and she was given more steroid, antibiotics and a vit & mineral all in an injection. She doesn’t seem to be improving though. She is trying to eat a bit but is unable to hold her food, her front feet are curled when she stands up and she has no co-ordination or strength. She does seem to be walking better today but will then randomly fall over. She is going back again tomorrow, but I think I may be saying goodbye to her .

Diet Change

I am changing my rat’s diet again. Mainly to try and cut down on wastage and make feeding them as economical as possible. They were getting Pasture Mix, Rabbit Food, Pasta and dog kibble but they were leaving so much of the Pasture Mix, I gave up feeding them that and they have been having P@H Guinea Pig Food as the staple, as that’s what the piggies get. However, they still leave the pellets in that.

The only thing they’ve had where they’ve eaten everything is when they had straights so I’ve bitten the bullet and bought bags of Mixed Flakes (maize, barley & flaked peas), low sunflower Parrot Food and Whole Wheat. This will be mixed with the Rolled Oats I already have here and the usual pasta and dog food. They will also get a multivitamin in their water once or twice a week and they will still get a varied selectio of fruit, veg & left overs so they should get a balanced diet. Hopefully the food I ordered will be here soon and I will of course document how they get on.

Some ratty photos

I took a few photos today after I cleaned the ratties out and thought I’d share some with you:

Rupert looking gorgeous!

Fogwatt did her usual at clean out time and refused to move from her bed!

Sugar and Nutmeg peering out the carrier

And Sugar doing her favourite thing – eating!!

Sugar and Fogwatt need a Birthday Party soon. I don’t know how old they are exactly but it’s coming up 2 years since I got them around 20th September, so in theory they must be 2 by now as neither of them were little babies when I got them. So once I get them goodies we can have a party.

Good news about Nutmeg

After my last slightly depressing post I am pleased to say that Nutmeg seems to be getting better!

She is no longer wobbly, is holding her food whilst eating, using the water bottle correctly and washing herself and getting around as normal. Occassionally her front feet still look strange, her toes splay, but she is definitely a lot better. I don’t know if maybe she had a stroke or something, I’m just pleased she’s ok.

Goodbye Bob

Bob went in for his op and died a few minutes after it. The vet doesn’t know why. He was ok during the op, but stopped breathing a few minutes after they’d finished.

I was feeling very depressed yesterday, couldn’t believe i’d lost another one. I was so looking forward to seeing him happily snuggled up with a pile of girlies.

It also doesn’t help that Nutmeg isn’t very well. She is showing the same neurological signs that Burmickitiy did, losing balance, losing control of her front feet and loss of general agility. I need to get her to the vet, but they will only be able to maybe prolong her life, so I know it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be gone too   I need to re arrange the cage for her as well to avoid her falling.

I was seriously considering giving up and not having any more after I lose these guys but then I had a cuddle with my boys and they cheered me up and I remembered the whole mission behind my breeding plans is to improve the health and lifespan of the rats. So I am now more determined than ever to work really hard at it and am looking forward to getting my breeding rats.

I will do Bob and Marlon’s obits shortly.

Sugar and Fogwatt

It was clean out day today and when I did the girls I took Nutmeg, Tinks, Saffron and Jemima out of their kennel at the top level, then worked my way down, cleaning the cage out. Sugar and Fogwatt were in the bottom bed and had baricaded themselves in, I couldn’t even see Fogwatt, she was that snuggled underneath a great big wodge of shredded paper. Sugar did poke her head out and come out eventually but I ended up carrying Fogwatt, still in the bed, to the carrier where she climbed out! I took a couple of photos as they looked so cute and had made such an impressive nest – Treacle would’ve been proud

Sugar:

Fogwatt: