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Jack Trades posted:That is so extremely true. Lol I just saw this. Cookie is a little ball of chub so that explains her “innocently naughty” type of behavior 
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Jul 25, 2018 20:08
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Starman Super DX posted:e: if all else fails they’ll learn to run to you fast when they hear a sound resembling a treat bag being shook. Literally any sound. My first pair of rats were conditioned by the sound of a pill bottle rattling to immediately climb onto the door and beg.
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Jul 25, 2018 21:01
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dovetaile posted:Literally any sound. My first pair of rats were conditioned by the sound of a pill bottle rattling to immediately climb onto the door and beg. This is definitely true. Rats seem so much more often curious than brave. Hell, I thought the vacuum would scare them but really it just makes them come up to the side of the cage to see what's going on. I mean, they'll even wake up and wait for you if they hear you stir in the morning before you actually awaken yourself lol
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Jul 25, 2018 22:30
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So a lady in the next town over from me was looking for someone to rehome her boys due to a divorce so now I have three new sons.  
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Aug 5, 2018 13:32
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Operation Juicebox posted:So a lady in the next town over from me was looking for someone to rehome her boys due to a divorce so now I have three new sons. Cuties. 
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Aug 5, 2018 13:43
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My trap for wayward rats worked! I put one of their boxes under the table the other day, just in case one of them fell off again. Heard a rustling today and realised I was one rat short, hiding in the box, nice and easy to recover.
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Aug 7, 2018 20:02
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I've seen a bunch of setups where cages don't have floors most (or all) of the way up. What's the usual way that your rats navigate that? Do they climb up the walls? How do they get down? Is it all about adding steps around the walls? Are there any things to be aware of?
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Aug 8, 2018 14:55
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Jaded Burnout posted:I've seen a bunch of setups where cages don't have floors most (or all) of the way up. What's the usual way that your rats navigate that? Do they climb up the walls? How do they get down? Is it all about adding steps around the walls? Are there any things to be aware of? AFAIK most cages like that have ramps that lead up to them. My cage is a little taller than what most people get I think? From what I’ve seen a lot of people seem to have shorter, wider ones. I have two floors that take about about 1/3 an area of the cage with two ramps switching back. I also have a big thick rope that leads from the lower part to the upper part that they love climbing on and a wooden ladder- both were bird cage toys. It’s funny today I was thinking about how cool it would be and if I had the space to stick another cage on top of other one and create an ultra rat tower 🤔 they can pretty much climb anywhere if the footing is okay so even if a new cage didn’t have ramps it would be like a “bonus zone” where I could hide treats as a reward for exploring the higher difficulty area. I’ll upload a picture of my whole cage later.
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Aug 8, 2018 16:47
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Starman Super DX posted:AFAIK most cages like that have ramps that lead up to them. My cage is a little taller than what most people get I think? From what I’ve seen a lot of people seem to have shorter, wider ones. I have two floors that take about about 1/3 an area of the cage with two ramps switching back. I also have a big thick rope that leads from the lower part to the upper part that they love climbing on and a wooden ladder- both were bird cage toys. Yeah mine currently has 3 floors with switchback ramps plus the top, which they have access to via a tube. I'm considering removing the floor between the bottom two levels and having it as a more open space. I do have a thick rope which I intended to use in a different cage project and such, but I suspect them climbing up isn't going to be the problem; they will happily climb up the entire outside height of the thing if they fancy it. I guess I'll want to maybe have a partial floor so they don't have to hop and climb to get up to the top if they don't want to.
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Aug 8, 2018 17:17
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Jaded Burnout posted:I've seen a bunch of setups where cages don't have floors most (or all) of the way up. What's the usual way that your rats navigate that? Do they climb up the walls? How do they get down? Is it all about adding steps around the walls? Are there any things to be aware of? the cage that came with mac, cheese and blue had one plastic floor but it was badly damaged so I took it out. I'm still experimenting with the layout because I thought I did a really good job stringing up ropes and ladders for them to climb on but every loving time they just go straight up the sides of the cage to sit in their sputnik and don't give a single gently caress about anything else.
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Aug 8, 2018 19:17
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Operation Juicebox posted:the cage that came with mac, cheese and blue had one plastic floor but it was badly damaged so I took it out. I'm still experimenting with the layout because I thought I did a really good job stringing up ropes and ladders for them to climb on but every loving time they just go straight up the sides of the cage to sit in their sputnik and don't give a single gently caress about anything else. How do they get back down?
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Aug 8, 2018 19:42
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Jaded Burnout posted:How do they get back down? Same way. They hop out of the sputnik onto a ladder that is strung out horizontally across the cage, proceed to the cage bars and climb vertically down again, ignoring literally everything else. This morning however I did wake up to find Cheese sitting on one of the corner hammocks grooming himself so that was nice.
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Aug 9, 2018 16:30
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Operation Juicebox posted:Same way. They hop out of the sputnik onto a ladder that is strung out horizontally across the cage, proceed to the cage bars and climb vertically down again, ignoring literally everything else. Interesting, mine won't climb down anything any steeper than their cage ramps.
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Aug 9, 2018 16:52
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we had finky's tumor (on her neck/upper chest? area) removed in december and it's started to grow back again. she's about a year and 4 or 5 months old, i don't know if we want to put her through surgery again or not. goddamn it gently caress she's still her usual spunky weird self, that hasn't changed for sure. she's amazing it's not a matter of money but rather or not she'll survive the surgery. i am so afraid of losing her. the vet did a wonderful and amazing job on her the first time and i wouldn't hesitate to take her back, i just know it would be risky. we're gonna schedule a checkup appointment soon and see what they can do for her. snoo fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Aug 11, 2018 |
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Aug 11, 2018 23:42
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If money isn't an issue, 1.5 years isn't too old for another surgery. I've had many rats go through surgery at that age, and the only rat I ever lost to surgery was much younger (<1 year). She'll probably be just fine.
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Aug 12, 2018 18:25
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I have only just come around to the understanding that, although every surgery has a risk, in the hands of a capable vet and with a healthy rat other than the lump, the risk is tiny. We have had just over 20 lump removal surgeries for our rats over the years we've had them, and with each rat going in healthy, breathing well and with a vet who knows his stuff, we've lost 1 girl. I used to be inconsolable dropping a rat off at the vet to be put under general anaesthetic: now it's very much a "See you this afternoon!" with no worry. It's taken 12 years and 20+ surgeries though 
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Aug 12, 2018 20:02
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thanks yall. I'm just very afraid of losing her and having the other rat be alone. I scheduled her an appointment for early next week. last time they were able to do the surgery same day but I think that was just lucky timing. fingers crossed for my lil dumb lumpy baby we originally wanted 3 rats but only two were available at the time, and we don't have a quarantine cage or anything yet. I think we'll be trying to get some new friends soon though. snoo fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 18:56
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The Snoo posted:fingers crossed for my lil dumb lumpy baby Hope it all goes well! One of mine is continuing to get sick. He's very susceptible to upper respiratory flareups, and treatments only seem to be effective while he's on them. The moment the antibiotics stop he's back to sneezing and cooing again. Just gonna have to hope he fights it off himself  Edit: maybe I'll try F10 nebulising again. Better stressed than dead. Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Aug 16, 2018 |
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Aug 16, 2018 01:31
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Rat FAQ/Megathread - Where your heart grows four legs and then breaks
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Aug 16, 2018 03:28
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DKD posted:Rat FAQ/Megathread - Where your heart grows four legs and then breaks I'm so sorry we lost our baby pearl a few weeks ago after a rough 9 months of constant fighting infections and abscesses. It's never easy
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Aug 16, 2018 05:52
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 pixeled my sibling finky loved the hypoallergenic biscuits they had at the vet she's healthy besides being lumpy. gonna have her surgery on monday and the vet can take out both the tumor and the small abscess on her side at the same time. she told me the same stuff yall did for the most part w/r/t age and surgery. she did say that finky took a little while to wake up last time and she might switch up some of the drugs, idk how important that will be for her survival but hopefully everything will go well.
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Aug 21, 2018 19:31
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The Snoo posted:
 Best of luck, T. Snoo
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Aug 21, 2018 19:42
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Best of luck to your good lumpy child.
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Aug 21, 2018 20:09
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Time for hard decisions. We're a day or two off from being down to one rat for the first time in 13 years. We've made the decision not to keep them any more which hurts but at the moment is financially the best decision. I don't really want our last girl living out her days on her own but equally don't want to rehome her. Humans can't replace a rat in the social stakes: we all know that. But with the rate that her sisters have died off around life expectancy, she probably doesn't have a huge amount of time either. What to do
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Aug 22, 2018 10:36
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I'm sorry to hear that It's a tough choice and I've not had to go through it yet. Would it be an option to keep her alone and see how she gets on? While rehoming is painful too, there would presumably come a point where it was clear she needed rat company enough to make it a necessity. Hopefully it wouldn't come to pass, but if it did you'd have options.
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Aug 22, 2018 11:25
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My preference, and my wife's too, is to keep her alone. She's always slept alone from the others and is generally happy doing her own thing - she doesn't really "socialise" with the others and hasn't played with them (wrestling, flipping etc.) for a long time now she's reached 2. This tells me that she may be okay on her own. Just doesn't feel fair on her.
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Aug 22, 2018 13:06
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Perhaps. But there's also a lot of stress involved in rehoming, she may be happiest where she's always been. Maybe keep an eye on her and see if her behaviour changes significantly, then you'll know. It can't really be unfair unless you're forcing her to stay that way after there's some demonstrated negative effect, right?
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Aug 22, 2018 13:39
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Jaded Burnout posted:Perhaps. But there's also a lot of stress involved in rehoming, she may be happiest where she's always been. I would personally think that rehoming her would be much more stressful than trying to make her as happy as possible while alone for the rest of her days, especially if she wasn't overly exuberant socially. Introducing a new rat to give her social companionship could also go very bad if she is getting on in days as she seems to be. I'm not an expert, though. That's just what I would do from personal experience with my rats over the years. I know it's a difficult decision no matter what, and I'm sorry.
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Aug 22, 2018 17:24
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Yeah, she's a very happy little girl and I think she'll be okay alone. She's been used to living with lots of rats coming in and out: she was one of fifteen in our cage at one point and came from an awful situation. She'd adapt fine to having a new friend or friends but we don't want rats once she goes, so we'd just be "using" rats until she died and that's no good. It's a shame to come to the end of having rats (I've had 40+ over the years) but it's time. We'll just see her out in style and who knows, she might have a long time left.
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Aug 22, 2018 17:27
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We also are raising a single rat after her sister died. Like yours, she had always been more withdrawn and antisocial. It seems to be going okay so far. She's gotten more comfortable with us, she runs around a lot more without freaking out at every little noise, and generally send to be doing well enough. It's hardly ideal, but it's working.
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Aug 22, 2018 17:31
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Aug 22, 2018 22:01
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I had a single rat for a while (once he hit 1.5) and he did just fine (lived to about 2.5 and was the biggest 2-pounder and the length of my forearm minus tail, I miss my Hammers very much). I will say that I worked retail so he had lots of outside-the-cage time.
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Aug 24, 2018 06:52
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I think my rats are sneaking out of their cage at night. They have 24/7 access to the top of the cage, but they've never shown any interest in climbing down, but today I noticed the second event where I'm 90% sure I left things one way and I came in to find them different. If so, they're always scooting back up and in by the time I'm around.
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Aug 24, 2018 13:31
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I got worried recently because one of my new baby double rex rats looked like her skin was darkening, and I thought she might be sick. She was just growing some peach fuzz.
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Aug 27, 2018 10:40
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finky went in for surgery at 8am and we just picked her up around 1pm. she did super great and had both her mammary tumor and a weird sebaceous-cyst-like mass removed. they used a different sedation med this time and she woke up faster, and she's not all drunk and angry looking. right now, she's surprisingly energetic and has been climbing around, doing her rat thing i'm gonna keep her separated from her sister until tomorrow afternoon when we get home from work and can monitor them, but they really want to be back together
snoo fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Aug 27, 2018 |
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Aug 27, 2018 18:59
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The Snoo posted:finky went in for surgery at 8am and we just picked her up around 1pm. she did super great and had both her mammary tumor and a weird sebaceous-cyst-like mass removed. they used a different sedation med this time and she woke up faster, and she's not all drunk and angry looking. right now, she's surprisingly energetic and has been climbing around, doing her rat thing
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Aug 27, 2018 19:28
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The Snoo posted:finky went in for surgery at 8am and we just picked her up around 1pm. she did super great and had both her mammary tumor and a weird sebaceous-cyst-like mass removed. they used a different sedation med this time and she woke up faster, and she's not all drunk and angry looking. right now, she's surprisingly energetic and has been climbing around, doing her rat thing I'm glad that your lumpy child is doing better now.
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Aug 27, 2018 20:02
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finky has been doing well so far, but on her neck where the mammary tumor was removed, she now has like a sac of fluid on the top end of the incision. it's about the same size as the tumor was but it's super squishy. I noticed it yesterday. she had internal dissolvable sutures and surgical glue on the outside; from what I read, it's possible her body is just reacting a bit to the sutures dissolving since it's been 4-5 days after her surgery, or a seroma, though this didn't happen last time. i feel like she has more excess skin left this time as well. she's acting like normal and taking her meds with gusto, there isn't discharge from any of the wounds and both look like they're healing great, no bruising, she's not puffy or sucking in her sides, and I don't think I'd count the sac as an infection-type of swelling the vet was worried about, but I'm hoping her body will re-absorb it like I've read. I just hope it isn't too large for that to happen. it's kinda like a small grape, similar to her tumors. even if I call the vet, I'm not able to bring her back in today :/
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Aug 31, 2018 12:21
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The Snoo posted:finky has been doing well so far, but on her neck where the mammary tumor was removed, she now has like a sac of fluid on the top end of the incision. it's about the same size as the tumor was but it's super squishy. I noticed it yesterday. she had internal dissolvable sutures and surgical glue on the outside; from what I read, it's possible her body is just reacting a bit to the sutures dissolving since it's been 4-5 days after her surgery, or a seroma, though this didn't happen last time. I'm not a medician, but I had a tumour removed from my neck and the same thing happened, squishy seroma where the tumour was. If that's what it is then it can be removed with a syringe but it will go away by itself given time.
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Aug 31, 2018 13:42
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 07:59 |
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One of my rats tried hiding in a box of other rats to avoid his nebuliser treatment. So I just put the whole dang box o'rats in the chamber.
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Aug 31, 2018 14:45
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