Burmickity - ?2007 - 14/04/08

I had to have Burmickity put to sleep on Monday. She went downhill very quickly on Sunday and could no longer lift herself up to get in the food bowl and she was even struggling with eating soft food. She was falling over whenever she washed herself or turned round and she looked so sad and confused led on her side, I just knew it was time to say goodbye.

I held her in my arms as she slipped away, so hopefully she knew how much I love her.

Burmickity arrived on 15th September 2007 along with Fogwatt and Sugar. Her and Fogwatt were only meant to be foster rats but Burmickity decided that wasn’t to be when she gave Steve a full nose clean-out the day she arrived. He decided they were staying. She was the only one of my rats who routinely gave kisses and she was so much gentler than the rest with her grooming.

She settled in straight away and was such a live-wire. They were let out on the bed but she was off in 5 minutes flat exploring the room and was always happy to be picked up and cuddled. She also had a great temperment with the other girls, never causing fights (though she wouldn’t back down without a struggle if one picked one with her!!) and she was normally found snuggled up with Sugar.

Bye Bye baby girl - we all miss you loads.

I’m back

I’ve been back since Tuesday actually, but have been busy doing not a lot! The rats all managed without me (of course) though i like to think they were pleased to see me on my return. My OH coped perfectly well and I think quite enjoyed looking after them.

Burmickity is unfortunately still not right, though she doesn’t seem to have got worse and has good moments. She was upstairs a couple of times last week and was climbing up the bars yesterday. She is still getting out of the cage by herself to play. She is losing weight which i’m assuming is because eating is hard work, so i’ve been taking her out to eat on her own and am going to start mixing up some special high calorie food for her. My poor baby girl. I know I shouldn’t have favourites but if I was allowed to she would be one! She’s just such a sweet cuddly girl.

The rest of them are all fine. Bo is continuing to be a git so I am seriously thinking about getting him to the vets next month for de-nadding. He keeps chasing the other boys around and kicking and foofing at them while they cower in a tube or box. And then I find them all cuddled up together asleep and think perhaps they’re all ok…

Here they are - five dippy boys cuddled up in their basket:

 

Fogwatt has a wound on her tummy. I found a little bit of blood on the bedding yesterday and checked them all for damage. It doesn’t look too bad but I will watch it for signs of abcessing (if that’s a proper word!!). I obviously don’t know who did it to her but she is an argumentative whotsit so it was probably deserved.

Burmickity is poorly

My poor baby girl is not herself. She is just sitting by the cage door at play time and not coming out and then if she does come out she just trundles round slowly rather than rampaging all over the place like she does usually. She is also a bit fluffed up. The most worrying thing though is she isn’t sitting up properly to eat and falls over occasionally when twisted round to wash. When she eats she isn’t picking up the food with her feet, just eating out the bowl like a dog does and if she does get something out, she puts it on the floor and holds it on the floor to eat.

I took her to the vet yesterday who says it is likely a neurological problem either in her spine or her brain but he said it wasn’t too bad yet and to keep an eye on her and take her back if/when it gets worse. I posted on the NFRS forum and it could be a number of things, ranging from an infection to a PT (Pituitary Tumour). They also recomended I check her teeth, which I have and they seem to be ok and I have seen her eating a bit.

I have decided to give her some Baytril, as in my mind if it is an infection, surely it’s best to treat early rather than when it gets bad and if it doesn’t work at least I can tell the vet that i’ve tried it as it’ll be the first AB they try.

Fingers crossed she brightens up, especially because i’m away next week and my OH is in charge. Not that he can’t cope, i’m just a bit of a control freak when it comes to my pets and like to know exactly what’s going on!

Hello, my name is Luke…

….and i’m a mismarked agouti hooded male fancy rat. My favourite thing is coming out to play. I’m always the first to the cage door when them other lazy boys can’t be bothered to move and I love to climb about on our side of the rat room, especially getting up on Mum’s desk and scent marking whatever she’s doing at the time. My second favourite thing is snuggling in bed. Jools is my new bestest friend and i’m nearly always snuggled with him. We like to sleep in our litter basket or in a hammock (even after it’s fallen down!).

I am a bit of a sickly rat - i’ve been to the vets twice since Mum bought me home at the beginning of the year. Once for a urinary infection and then for a respiratory thing but I don’t let it get me down and even climb out of my carrier to say hi to the vet!

Here are some photos of me:

off exploring

hmm…. what’s this?

Ooh! Food!

It’s a hard life. Chilling during free-range on top of the cage with a good view of everything.

And a vid of me: Luke playing

Goodbye Spike

Last May I brought a male rat home from work to re-home. This was before the days of the Adoption Centre so the ‘left overs’ (my word for the animals that don’t sell) just stayed until someone bought them or a kind-hearted employee took pity on them!

He was a beautiful champagne hooded called Spike who was about 6 months old at the time and on his own. I re-homed him to a lady called Amy, down in Merseyside and he happily moved in with a lone boy she had named Archie. They got on like a house on fire from the word go and never had a cross word to say to each other.

I was wondering recently how he was getting on so emailed Amy and got a reply back yesterday saying that both boys had been put down recently due to pneumonia. I feel really quite sad that he’s gone because even though he was only here about six weeks I fell in love with him and he was a great rat. He took a little while to settle and get used to the idea of coming out to play and cuddles but once he did he never looked back! He loved to be out and about, trundling round on the bed and my desk. My last memories of him are dropping him off with the lady transporting him to Merseyside and him running around her sofa and climbing all over her housemates like he’d been there forever.

I am so pleased though that he found such a loving home and lived the remainder of his life with such a good friend. I’m just glad I was a part of his too short lfe, even just for a bit.

Here are some photos I have of him and a vid of him playing on the bed.

and the vid: Spike free-ranging

Mustard’s at it again….

…. escaping that is! She has learnt that she can jump up high enough to clear the perspex on the other end of the dividing wall and get up the wall the same way she got up the other end. She’s a monster, but i’m also so proud of her - she’s obviously very clever and very determined.

The one thing I notice about all the rats is once they learn something they don’t forget and they also observe their surroundings. For instance they see me going through the play pen wall door and they know that’s the way out so they’ve started chewing the door - Doughnut and Pepper in particular. I spoiled them today and left the door open so they could rampage about the whole room. I don’t often do this as they can get on the desk and tend to chew and pee on whatever i’m doing on the desk but today I wasn’t doing anything so just let them run about. I love watching them explore somewhere different - it’s oviously so much fun and the girls got their own back on the boys and climbed on their cage for a change.

It was Doughnut’s turn to be in season tonight and she was sat vibrating away at the boys. I will never breed from any of my current rats due to their backgrounds but I do have fun making up ‘virtual’ partnerships and I do think Doughnut would make a good mum. She’s got a lovely temperment, outgoing and friendly but also very docile and calm and she’s got a lot calmer with the other rats as she’s got older. I reckon she’d make lovely babies with Charlie, as he’s a big softy too.

Beau’s abcess is getting better - I pulled a slightly manky bit of scab off yesterday and it’s clean underneath. I also should have said that both Luke and Mustard recovered from whatever snottiness they had that I said about before.

Abcess - yuck!!

I was back to the vets today - this time with Beau who has an abcess. I found it late Monday night and managed to get loads of the greenest, smelliest pus i’ve ever seen out of it! Today, thankfully it’s dried up and he just has a fairly large hole in his groin, so the vet just advised to continue bathing it with salt water and didn’t charge me for the consult - bless her!

There’s not been a lot else going on, just the usual nuttiness. Nutmeg is in season this evening and I just spent about 10 minutes trying to catch her as she bounced away from me as soon as I touched her, then when I did eventually get hold of her she sat in my hand and vibrated like mad! It’s brilliant, nearly as funny as boggling!

Treacle is frantically nest-building today. She has made a huge pile of bedding in front of their house, charging up and down the pipes carrying mouthfuls of bedding upstairs. Every so often one of the others trashes it by going in and out of the house so she just builds it back up again. I’m not sure why she does this - she does it occassionally, just goes mental and digs in the bedding or re-arranges it! Nutter. 

Hello Laydeez!!

Whenever the boys are out to play they have to torment the girls in their cage. Normally Beau is the main troublemaker as he is fairly obsessed with the opposite sex. He’s the only one that makes the effort to get over the wall into the play area when they’re out rampaging about on the other side. (just want to clarify the boys are out rampaging on the other side of the wall to the play pen and the girls are in their cage - they never meet except through the bars!)

I love watching the girl’s reactions. Some of them are very aggressive - defending their cage (i’m assuming) with bites and little punches and grabs with their front feet. Pepper and Mustard are two that are always aggressive and when Mustard was escaping over the perspex she would even bite the boys through the bars of their own cage!! Treacle is a little hussy - she is fairly obsessed with the boys and hurls herself at the bars but she makes little chirping squeaks at them which don’t sound aggressive to me. Charlotte and Doughnut come to say helllo, but just sniff at them gentle and lady-like and normally get shoved dramatically out the way by Treacle and Pepper.

I videoed them the other night and took some photos. It was in the afternoon so not all the girls could be bothered to get out of bed, but Pepper, Treacle, Mustard and Doughnut came to say, “hello boys”, and bat their eyelids! here are a few photos:

Mustard and Beau getting aquainted.

Sitting pretty! (l-r: Mustard, Pepper and Doughnut)

And here’s the video. If you have the volume up you can hear Doughnut’s long drawn out squeaks at the beginning and then Treacle’s little chirps. Enjoy: Ratty Flirting

Moving in to the vets!

I go through phases when I seem to spend all my life at the vets. It doesn’t help that I often end up going with work animals too!

I said before that Mustard was poorly. She developed a very loud and snotty rattle along with a fluffed up coat, lethargy and a bit of weight loss. I took her to the vets a week ago today and she had a steroid shot and some baytril which brightened her up but didn’t seem to do anything for the rattle, so we went back to the vets on Monday and whilst at the vets she barely rattled at all! However, I was given some more Baytril and today she has stopped rattling unless she’s eating, so it does seem to be clearing up.

I also had to take Luke to the vet - he seems like he’s going to be a sickly boy. He developed a snotty nose last Saturday evening (why is it always the weekends?) as well as just generally looking sorry for himself so I gave him some of Mustard’s baytril which brightened him up and took him to the vet with Mustard on Monday. We were given more Baytril, which doesn’t seem to be doing a lot yet, but i’m staying patient. He also has a sore eye. His right eye has been runny and porphrin stained on and off for a while now and I couldn’t tell if his face was swollen at all. He was still eating and his eyes were open so I was just keeping an eye on him. Anyway, I now have some antibiotic eye drops which he has to have twice a day - that’s fun, trying to hold a squirming rat and get the drops in his eyes and not on his head!!

Fingers crossed they both get better soon and none of the rest go down with what they’ve got.

The rat that can climb walls

As you may know I used to have a perspex divider in the rat room to keep the rats in their play pen area. A little while ago I fell over the perspex and broke it, so I had a smaller piece that I used to patch up the gap I made. Eventually, however, Mustard figured out she could jump onto the top of the smaller bit, hop up on to the top and escape. Here is a vid. Not only does it show both Mustard and Pepper escaping, it also shows how well rats can jump and also how rats use their tails for balance.

Pepper and Mustard escaping (video)

Mustard is a mischief. She is very little, she has never reached the 300g mark and i’m sure it’s because she’s so active she just burns off her food straight away! She’s always the first one at the door, even when the rest are asleep in the middle of the day, she’s there climbing the bars. When she’s out she doesn’t stop and if anyone’s going to work out how to escape it’s her. It used to be Treacle, but she’s got a little bit less active now she’s older, so Mustard is now chief escapee.

To get over the problem of her escaping, Steve built me a wall out of chipboard. It’s about 5ft tall with a door and perspex windows in!

The first thing the rattys realised was it was wood so they could chew it:

They managed to do this in about a week! Steve was not impressed. Then Mustard realised she could climb it:

Mustard climbing the wall (video)

So Steve put a length of perspex up the wall so she can’t get a grip of it and a bit over the hole, so that foiled that rat great escape! I really do think they’re contained now, but Mustard has been poorly this week so i’m sure she’ll be back to finding escape routes when she feels 100% again!