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Yeah, I've put lots of non-food items in the rat cage, and they might chew them up, but they won't actually eat them.
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Dec 12, 2012 22:04
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I might let them play in the box during supervised free roam time or something. That way I can watch for chomping.
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Dec 12, 2012 22:20
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Yeah, my rats nibble everything initially but rarely continue trying to eat something if it's not edible (I say rarely.. Blue has an obsession with just one of my plastic earrings for some reason). Had two sets of rats now and I can count on one hand the number of times they've pooped/peed outside the cage. Not counting little scentmark dribbles, of course. Am I really lucky? I remember when I had my boy rats as a kid they pooped quite a lot, though. Boys are gross. 
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Dec 12, 2012 22:43
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Fraction posted:I have a cardboard box, full of those foam packing peanuts. If I give this box to the rats, which scenario will happen: Some packing peanuts are safe for animals, as they're made of cornstarch. A quick way to test if you're not sure is to see if they melt under a bit of water.
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Dec 12, 2012 23:59
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Chakattack! posted:Yeah, my rats nibble everything initially but rarely continue trying to eat something if it's not edible (I say rarely.. Blue has an obsession with just one of my plastic earrings for some reason). Hey now! My boys have never pooped outside their cage. Except once, at the vet, and the vet is scary. I think it depends how well socialized they are when you get them. And luck.
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Dec 13, 2012 01:48
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Definitely a fear/socialization thing a lot. Baths turn my male rat into a poop machine. He's not scared of anything else. Just water.  When I first got him he pooped a lot when held, but he doesn't now. One of my females pooped outside the cage too but she was always pretty fearful and didn't like being held or touched.
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Dec 13, 2012 01:59
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Got some great pics of the girls at dinnertime today. The empty bowl is not because I'm a bad ratkeeper -- Amelia stashes all food at the bottom of the cage as soon as it hits the bowl, as you will see in some of the pictures. They get lab blocks in the morning, fresh veggies and other things at night. All of it gets stashed immediately in a mad dash relay race deal. I even got some pictures of Faye this time! Faye in the stash, working on some broccoli stalks and pork chop bones  Faye chilling by the house. The red on the roof was from the spaghetti they were given -- Amelia felt the need to drag it OVER the house on the way to the stash.  "Please rescue me! They never feed me," cries Amelia.  And this last picture basically captures both of their personalities. 
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Dec 13, 2012 06:59
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Serella posted:Some packing peanuts are safe for animals, as they're made of cornstarch. A quick way to test if you're not sure is to see if they melt under a bit of water. my boys go absolutely apeshit over those, which is funny considering they were made completely devoid of nutritional value so as not to attract animals.
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Dec 13, 2012 15:14
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Sorry if I'm being a pest or an overly paranoid first-time-having-rats-in-over-a-decade person, but more questions about Amelia. Her sneezing has become occasionally... squeaky. That's the only way I can describe it. Also, she has a clear discharge coming from her nose. Should I keep with the wait-and-see, or is it now vet territory?
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Dec 13, 2012 20:39
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I'd take her in at your earliest convenience. Probably just a URI, they bounce back quick on antibiotics.
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Dec 13, 2012 20:41
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I like to drop my rats into a hoody and take them outside to chill with me on the porch. They usually seem a bit perturbed out there, but they aren't use to life on the ~*~outside~*~ and it's unusually loud and probably smells strange to them out there (I'm downtown in a large city). Nothing I'm really worried about, just a lot of standing and sniffing. Lately however, they've taken to shivering/shaking a bit too. Is that them being freaked out a bit by the new environment? Is it getting too cold for them? It's around +50F most of the time which I don't consider particularly cold, but I'm not a tiny mammal either.
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Dec 13, 2012 22:03
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Pandora arrived  She is so loving cute you guys, oh mannnn. Can't wait to introduce her to the gang.   
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Dec 13, 2012 22:07
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Second picture kind of looks like a hedgepig 
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Dec 13, 2012 22:52
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After seeing that rat, I can die now. Sorry for the lovely camera phone pic. This is how Hector sleeps, freaks me right the gently caress out. Are you really so sad that you need to hang yourself? And it's not a perspective trick, he just flops his head over anything narrow. I think he's trying to commit suicide but he's to lazy to go through with it. Good.
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Dec 13, 2012 22:54
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Hehe Spartacus likes to do that, but just over the edge of the top floor of the cage. He also sleeps with his eyes wide open. When he hangs his head over, they bug out really wide. How can that possibly be comfortable??
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Dec 14, 2012 01:22
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So one of my rats has decided that boggling at everything is great and she does it all the time now. Her name is Donut. Also, a very handsome 
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Dec 14, 2012 03:49
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Day two of Baytril with Amelia -- a lot of it seems to end up everywhere but in her mouth.
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Dec 16, 2012 20:45
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One of my rats split/broke a nail today, and OH MY GOD BLOOD EVERYWHERE. I totally panicked, Blue didn't even seem to know that anything was wrong with her. The guy I'm seeing had taken them out and put them on my bed without somehow noticing that her foot was bleeding, so now I have tiny red ratty footprints all over my bedsheet. I didn't have anything on hand to make the bleeding stop but I vaguely remembering reading something about cornstarch, so after cleaning her paw I put a bunch of that on but it didn't seem to help. What eventually made it stop was putting her in the carry-cage so she stopped moving about, and it stopped bleeding on it's own. Still, pretty scary! I was terrified she was bleeding from her ladybits because I had lots of problems with my previous rats having UTIs.
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Dec 16, 2012 21:09
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I always kept a styptic pencil around for my birds in case of a situation like that one -- will the same work for rats?
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Dec 16, 2012 21:38
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Sometimes my rats will poop in their food dish. Rats are very short-sighted.
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Dec 17, 2012 01:30
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dustbin posted:Sometimes my rats will poop in their food dish. Rats are very short-sighted. I've never seen that, but mine like to eat on the litter box.
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Dec 17, 2012 01:40
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Not The Platypus posted:I always kept a styptic pencil around for my birds in case of a situation like that one -- will the same work for rats?
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Dec 17, 2012 06:23
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Chakattack! posted:One of my rats split/broke a nail today, and OH MY GOD BLOOD EVERYWHERE. I totally panicked, Blue didn't even seem to know that anything was wrong with her. The guy I'm seeing had taken them out and put them on my bed without somehow noticing that her foot was bleeding, so now I have tiny red ratty footprints all over my bedsheet. I didn't have anything on hand to make the bleeding stop but I vaguely remembering reading something about cornstarch, so after cleaning her paw I put a bunch of that on but it didn't seem to help. One of my rats tore off one of her nails being clumsy, and it bled pretty bad as well. She didn't seem overly concerned and it eventually stopped, healed up, and regrew and you wouldn't know the difference now.
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Dec 17, 2012 08:21
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Not The Platypus posted:Day two of Baytril with Amelia -- a lot of it seems to end up everywhere but in her mouth. I had to treat one of ours, Raspberry, last week - depends how fussy yours is, but I put the Baytril on a piece of bread and she loved it.
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Dec 17, 2012 10:08
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Found a tumour on my girl Frida's groin last week and had it removed for $350NZD. The healing seemed to be going well so I was feeling pretty good, and then a couple of hours ago i found another tumour on her sister, Dee. I'm an absolute wreck; there's no way i can afford another surgery and at the rate this thing popped up i can only see her lasting comfortably for another month, max. I just feel so awful knowing I'll need to have her put down before too long. She's two and a half so she's an old lady now, but I'm not ready to lose her yet. There isn't much point in me sharing this, but I can't stop crying and I feel like at least here people will understand.
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Dec 17, 2012 10:51
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dinosaursforsale posted:Found a tumour on my girl Frida's groin last week and had it removed for $350NZD. The healing seemed to be going well so I was feeling pretty good, and then a couple of hours ago i found another tumour on her sister, Dee. I'm an absolute wreck; there's no way i can afford another surgery and at the rate this thing popped up i can only see her lasting comfortably for another month, max. I just feel so awful knowing I'll need to have her put down before too long. She's two and a half so she's an old lady now, but I'm not ready to lose her yet. There isn't much point in me sharing this, but I can't stop crying and I feel like at least here people will understand. I feel your pain, as I've have dealt with this exact dilemma myself. You'd be surprised at how resilient ratties can be at lugging around tumors the size of tennis balls. Pau was already an old woman when we decided to let her pass on her own, after 3 surgeries and a spay. She was full of energy and being her same old self up until her last day. I loving miss her though. Kobe is on the same path as well, unfortunately. Rats aren't meant to live as long as us, and it sucks a lot. But we learn to deal  I'm sorry about your girlies and your financial situation. At least you can have comfort in knowing that when they do go, you gave then a happy and fulfilling life and saved them from certain premature death...well, at least I did with my own girls. They were more than likely going to be snake food. But really, it's going to be okay, and they are probably very grateful to have been spoiled and loved so!
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Dec 17, 2012 11:33
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I've been thinking about getting some rats (and following this thread) for a few months now, but I cannot loving imagine paying that sort of money to get a tumor removed on a rat. It seems like they just tend to die, and surgery like that would just push it back a few months at best. That said, after all the infrastructure is in place (cage, toys, water/feeding hardware, etc.) how much do you guys figure the monthly expense for 2-3 rats runs? Including medicine for stuff like mites and Dri-Tail or whatever? I want to make sure I can afford to take care of a few rats before diving in.
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Dec 17, 2012 12:29
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Tbh I'm in the camp of not paying for surgeries. If my rats get tumours (or rather, when they get them, as I have girls) I'll assess their quality of life and have them pts before the tumour impacts on that. Monthly expenses for my rats are next to nothing. My biggest problem is impulse-buying more things for their cage (and thanks to a sale, impulse buying a huge cage).
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Dec 17, 2012 12:50
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I find myself spending an average $15.00 a month on food $8.00 a month on bedding for 3 rats. Medicine I spend about $5.00 for 6 100mg doxy capsules which lasts me about 6-8 wks for 2 rats that are on it for the rest of their lives. I do compound my own medication under the supervision of my vet and fiancee, who is a pharmacy student. Otherwise I would be spending close to $70.00 a month or more if I were to get it prescribed and compounded at a pharmacy. Most of my rat expenses comes in the form of vet bills when my rats start reaching the 1.5-2 year checkpoint. My absolute limit for tumor removal surgery is 2 times. Anytime after that I find they get too old to operate on anyway. My first rat Remy had a cluster of tumors until the very end. He was too old to operate on, and he already had a previous removal surgery. He managed to drag himself around the room and still boggled when held and given treats, but the sight of him was depressing and I would get super embarrassed if anyone saw him because it made me feel like a bad owner for "allowing" the growth to happen. I have a rough time with euthanasia when old rats do that.I'll be drawing some pictures of my rats as a requested Christmas present to my mother in law. I'll post it when it's finished.
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Dec 17, 2012 13:12
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When my absolute favourite rat (I know you're not supposed to have favourites, but she was such a gem) Mishka got a tumour, I found the situation really difficult. I feel like if it's unfeasible to spend the amount of money it costs for those sorts of surgeries, or if paying it puts you in a really difficult situation financially, it's not worth it. With Mishka, my vet was of the opinion that her tumour was inoperable because of how attached it seemed to be to her reproductive organs so we left it for a few months before it started to grow too much, then tried to operate. Unfortunately it was inoperable and they didn't wake her up from the op. I was quoted about £100 but as they didn't end up doing the surgery only paid about £30 iirc. Now I'm unemployed I couldn't at all afford to spend so much on one of my current rats, so I'll have to do the best I can for them if something happens. But I had the money at the time and didn't begrudge it. Like Fraction, my monthly costs for the ratties are ridiculously low (I buy massive bales of cardboard bedding intended for horses super cheap, and make up my own food mix with ingredients I've bought in bulk to keep costs down) and I got their cage second hand for next to nothing, so I feel like the money I save on everyday stuff makes it easier to spend money on vet bills.
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Dec 17, 2012 13:45
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Man. Found a good size birdcage at Petsmart that was on clearance for $13 and snagged it this weekend. Spent about 5 bucks on shelves and zip tied them in and I got me a multi-level cage big enough for 2 boys, maybe 3 smallish girls for less than 20 bucks. 
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Dec 17, 2012 14:25
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Chakattack! posted:Like Fraction, my monthly costs for the ratties are ridiculously low (I buy massive bales of cardboard bedding intended for horses super cheap, and make up my own food mix with ingredients I've bought in bulk to keep costs down) and I got their cage second hand for next to nothing, so I feel like the money I save on everyday stuff makes it easier to spend money on vet bills. I use cardboard bedding bales too. Ecobed or whatever it's called from GJW Titmuss, £15 for a 20kg bale delivered. That usually lasts me like two months, at least. I bought like five/six months worth of food for about £30 delivered from rat rations a while ago, so the rats get a different grain each day and it lasts forever. I have dogs as well though so money saved is basically emergency fund for them  e: I just had to pull Panda out of the main cage. She was being chased very aggressively around by Chell, and when I checked on her she had blood on her crotch. I'm not sure if she was bitten or if the blood is coming out of her; it looks like the latter. Booking a vet appt asap in the morning. It's either myco, a tumor or a UTI, right? As of half an hour later, she's not bleeding now but it doesn't look right down there. Sooooo vets it is still. If they can fit me in. Urgh. Fraction fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Dec 17, 2012 |
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Dec 17, 2012 15:12
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I posted a while back about my rat (male, estimated age ~1.5yrs) going crazy with seizures. Well, they havent stopped, and have gotten more frequent. We keep him in a cardboard box now so he doesnt hurt himself when thrashing around. Change boxes about weekly so it doesnt get too funky. He was always very friendly - he would snuggle with you, loved to explore when we let him play on the couch. Would fall asleep under your shirt (not before "presenting" his head for behind-the-ear scratchies). That all changed a few days ago. He's gotten very aggressive and restless. Lots of commotion during the night. This morning when I tried to feed him, he took a sizeable chunk out of my thumb. What do I do? I'm wondering if he has a brain tumor and it's affecting his personality or if he's in pain? He's always "on edge" now, and bites with conviction. Considering euthanasia... I also live by a huge park, maybe it would be more humane to let him free and give him a chance?
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Dec 19, 2012 03:01
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OldMold posted:I also live by a huge park, maybe it would be more humane to let him free and give him a chance? What the gently caress.  Euthanize your rat. At the vet's office.
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Dec 19, 2012 03:04
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Do not release your rat ever. You said yourself he is having seizures, so there's no way he would survive in the wild. Has he ever seen a vet about the seizures? If it's been going on that long, he probably just needs to be put down. Prolonging his suffering is not a good idea, especially if his behavior has changed that much. It probably means he's in pain. I normally don't want to sperg out on people but I'm just baffled why he isn't at a vet or put down. If he's literally in a cardboard box to keep from hurting himself from having seizures, it has gone on for way too long. Again, don't release your rat unless you think dying cold and painfully from seizures or ripped apart by other animals is a preferable death.
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Dec 19, 2012 03:09
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Domestic rats aren't well adapted for the wild, and are most certainly not the same as your typical "sewer" rats, so setting him free is out of the question. The more humane thing to do is to put him to sleep.
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Dec 19, 2012 04:19
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Aww, poor little guy. Nthing euthanasia. Its far more humane than letting him starve in the wild scared and alone. He doesn't mean to be aggressive. He is probably, as you said, in pain. Going to go hug an armful of rats now
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Dec 19, 2012 05:08
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Vet appointment set Think this will be my last rodent pet, it's just so heartbreaking dealing with their health issues. Even more so since they are so tiny and social
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Dec 19, 2012 08:44
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For lurkers: don't ever set your rat 'free'. They will have a horrible death very soon if you do. Sooo apparently the blood on Pandora's crotch was from a bite or scratch. How the hell does a rat get bitten/scratched there but not have wounds ANYWHERE else!?
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Dec 19, 2012 10:14
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I'd like to add that it is a horrible idea to release ANY captive animal into the wild. They can introduce bad things into the ecosystem and can't fend for themselves.
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Dec 21, 2012 06:36
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