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Carebear posted:I would like to update the medical section on information for more information on tumors and mycoplasma - if anyone has any ideas let me know. I feel it's a little weird there's no section respiratory problems.
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Jun 24, 2010 04:29
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Superconsndar posted:I'm down to just Magic and Judge now. I lost two this year to pneumonia too. Weirdly, I'm glad to hear it happened to someone else too because of that feeling like I must be a horrible parent to them.
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Jun 25, 2010 09:00
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squidtarts posted:Mostly they spend a lot of time sleeping curled up together on the top shelf. They did start out with an igloo up there, but after they pushed it off and scared the crap out of themselves, I moved it to the bottom. They're not particularly interested in the hammocks yet either. I am glad that they're getting along, though Joan is pretty clearly the head I had a problem with my girls loving their top shelf home but pushing it off all the time. I ended up buying the kind of wooden bird perch that screws onto the bars and using that to make a little barrier to help prevent that.
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Jun 28, 2010 00:08
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squidtarts posted:Awesome idea, thanks! Definitely something I'm going to try after they took a tumble in a tissue box again today. I've found bird stuff in general pretty helpful. It fastens down so I don't have to worry about them tipping over bowls anymore among other things. Plus I do some set ups I couldn't pull off otherwise, like putting treat bowls in extremely inconvenient places. A dollar store box of wooden cloths pins is my other best friend in the never ending struggle between us over whether their cage should be functional or a giant pile of overturned things at the bottom of their cage. They're not terribly effective, but they can help, and I guess they give the girls another (possibly not terribly healthy) thing to chew on. Edit: This might be going overboard, but it just occurred to me that it'd take me about a 1 dollar's worth of bolts and washers and maybe 1 minute of work, and I could have just fastened the tissue box directly to the side of the cage. shadysight fucked around with this message at 10:16 on Jun 28, 2010 |
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Jun 28, 2010 10:11
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Cucarachita posted:That's one of my major concerns. When princess got home she had some eye issues. We've gotten that sorted out so its all right now. As far as bedding goes, they told us they don't sell pine or cedar due to the dustiness of the shavings and the respiratory issues known to lie with them. My guess is this stuff is aspen all it says it wood shavings so that can be who the gently caress knows. I'll look into getting her something different though, because my greatest suspicion was the bedding. I'm using a litter called Tek-Fresh that I got from a feed shop that seems to be the same stuff as Care-Fresh, though possibly a little cheaper. I'll stick my neck out and say I've tried rescuing rats, and it's not always easy. I don't have a rat rescue that I've found within 100 miles of where I live. After weeks of cruising craigslist I found two that needed a home, but they've been difficult. One never warmed up to me and spent her whole remaining life sitting in a house in the bottom of the cage, and suffering from repeated respiratory infections, and the other, while very, very sweet has teeth that have gradually gotten so bad with age that without monthly teeth trimmings she would die. I'm not trying to say that if you do rescue a rat it will be a problem, just that rescuing one doesn't necessarily mean getting a better one than what you'd get at a pet shop, so you shouldn't feel guilty or whatever if you have trouble finding one that way. My two babies that I got from a local pet shop, where they got stapled into a paper bag by an employee (  ) were two of my best adjusted, healthiest rats.
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Jun 29, 2010 01:55
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Slidje posted:More rescuing rats. Good stories. You're a better person than I am if that's the sort of cases you take in. I wouldn't want to dissuade anyone of rescuing rats period, since there's a real reward to helping someone who really needs it and some animals really seem all the more chipper for being a better situation. It can be hard though, which is why I felt the need to bring it up with a first time owner.
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Jun 29, 2010 22:02
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Cucarachita posted:I doubt Petfinder would have too much about rats. I actually found two apparently fairly decent rat rescue organizations this way. They're just 120 miles away from where I live 
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Jun 30, 2010 02:43
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EVG posted:Maybe it was a gambian pouched rat? Different species, but looks pretty much exactly like a pet rat made huge. Huh, they also live significantly longer than normal rats, which is neat. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a 2 foot long version of one of babies though.
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Jun 30, 2010 08:44
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Superconsndar posted:A lot of breeders have closed ratteries and don't allow people in to control the risk of disease being brought in. I had a closed rattery. Most people do. If people wanted to pick a baby in person I'd generally meet them somewhere. My rat room was totally clean and I had tons of pics and videos of how my rats were kept, but I didn't allow adopters in. One trip to the pet store and back was enough to kill my entire colony of 40+ rats and destroy years of work. How does that work exactly? I don't doubt your word on it, it's just surprising that it would lead to 100% fatalities.
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Jun 30, 2010 19:36
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Superconsndar posted:In 2006, I brought home SDA. As best I can tell, I must have picked it up walking through Petsmart- it's carried in mucous membranes and can live on your body for several hours IIRC. I was pretty strict about changing clothes, washing my hands, blowing my nose, and usually even showering after going to a pet store or being around someone else's rats before going back in my rat room. That one time, it apparently wasn't enough. Over the course of the 4 or 5 months I battled it, I ended up losing roughly 40 of I think 48 rats to secondary infections from SDA. It destroyed my rattery. Sendai and SDA are the main reasons most clubs no longer sanction rat shows, and most breeders have closed ratteries. My condolences  Now I have something new to read up on. It boggles my mind that something could be that fatal and easy to spread.
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Jun 30, 2010 22:26
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Skutter posted:Rats can get "huffy" when they are stressed or in a new environment. I'd give them a few days to calm down and get used to their surroundings before taking them to the vet. My rats get a bit choofy right after I clean their cage, but they're usually fine in an hour or so. This. There's probably better signs that they're sick, but the "OMG, Get to the vet right now!" point is when they start being huffy, and not wanting to move around. My girls usually found a high point in the cage to do that. It can wait overnight sometimes, but you need to get on top of it right away at that point because they do not have a lot of resources to burn when they get sick. Edit: I prefer to quantify things. This is breathing poorly. This is lethargic, as opposed to lazy shadysight fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Jul 2, 2010 |
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Jul 2, 2010 22:56
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Hoplosternum posted:Argh, I shouldn't have looked here. It's made me jealous about all the patterns and colours that we can't get in New Zealand. *bitter* It depends where you live in the States. I basically have access with either white rats or white rats with black heads, unless I get really lucky. Your babies are super cute 
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Jul 7, 2010 23:18
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Apidae posted:They're both crazy for oatmeal, it's hilarious. Oh, hey, this is a great idea. My rat with the terrible teeth usually has a little trouble eating by the end of month when we get her teeth trimmed again, and this seems like a great treat for her that she could actually eat. I just tried a bowl of it with her and she is also nuts for it. I even moved one of her clip on bowls from nigh-impossible to reach so she'd have easy access to it. Took her all of 10 seconds to hoard it all, so back to nigh-impossible to reach it goes Also, I come up with terrible names for my pets, so I'd be tempted to do something to pair them, like Bee&Cee, Bee&Jay or Bee&Emm.
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Jul 9, 2010 17:59
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Apidae posted:I've just been giving them little bits of whatever I'm having to eat, and I have oatmeal + pb every morning. Hopefully it will help make them more sociable in the daytime. Hiding rat is cute! :3 Yeah, the name was funny, but I'm not sure I could go through with that name either. I ended up with my rats having code names for my Mother, so that Syphilis and Misogyny were Sissy and Missy around her. I suppose I should be happy because my Syphilis is gone now, and Misogyny doesn't exist anymore! I thought naming them after bad things would at least give me jokes to cheer me up when they died, but they just made me more sad. I still like telling about how I got Syphilis at a pet shop sometimes though.
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Jul 9, 2010 21:04
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Arg! So I just found a lump on one of my girls today, but my regular vet is out of town till August 1st. I'm trying to decide now whether to wait it out or go to the other vet I know but don't trust much. gently caress. I know what you're probably going to tell me. I guess I just need to be told to suck it up and pay twice as much as I normally would for significantly more indifferent care. Edit: Extra info. She seems happy and healthy enough, she just has a lump like half a golf ball on her the side of her stomach. Edit 2: Made appointment for Monday with vet I don't like. It'd be almost 2 weeks till I could get into my regular vet and risking a pet's health is not worth my personal quibbles. shadysight fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jul 24, 2010 |
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Jul 23, 2010 19:48
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