Short stays.

Last week I brought two girls home from work with the hopes of nursing them back to health. The first little girl was a female agouti mouse. She had somehow gotten smooshed under the food bowl. (I'd guess she was hanging out under there and some other burrowing mouse cause the bedding to shift and crush her?) In any case she was physically flattened, but there was no hemorrhaging and she seemed to have full control of her limbs, her eyes were bright and she didn't even seem to be in pain. She did not make it through the night, and that surprised me. At least she died with some comfort and dignity.

The other was a little black hooded rat girl. She was suffering from a severe respiratory infection. (She was awaiting pick-up, hence not having been taken to the vet.) She was having a hard time keeping her body temperature up and would not eat. We dosed her with baytril and wrapped her up, but she too was gone by morning.

I really hate when their stays here are so short, but it makes it worthwhile to know that they had a little comfort and a little love before they passed.

Oh that Pickles.

Pickles decided to swallow a large piece of chicken whole last night. We spent about an hour an a half alternating between tweezing it out, sucking it out with a bulb syringe, and letting her push it up on her own. It was our first encounter with a choking rat, and it sure was something. I thought later that I should have photographed the two large pieces we removed, but honestly, as we were taking them out I just wanted them gone.

Pickles is doing well again and still trying to eat most anything in sight.

Adventures in Prednisone

Our very first girl Pickles is battling a pituitary tumor. In all honesty we had an appointment to have her put down today. We decided on Thursday to give Prednisone treatment a shot. Happily she is doing very well on the treatment!

She is once again able to walk by use of all four legs, and able to groom most of herself. We're currently on day four of the treatment and cancelling our appointment. We're really hoping to be able to keep her going and happy for at least another week.

We're here!

I've tried a few blogging sites, but hopefully this will be "the one." While I'm dragging my butt about getting a website up and going it's nice to have a way to share news.

Where we are right now:
We have eleven rattie residents.

Pickles is beautiful fawn berkshire. She's a third hand rat, and was one of the first two rats we ever had! She's around three (being third hand it's hard to know for sure). She is sadly, slowly succumbing to a pituatary tumor.

Gretchen is a cute little black hooded, also around three years old. She was considered "unadoptable" by ORATS so we took her in.

Allele is a little siamese girl. She came from an "I was given a pregnant rat" litter. She was in the second group of rats we ever took in. She lost her sister Nimbus to a ridiculously virulent strain of Strep. Pneumoniae late last year.

Theta is an agouti berk, around six months old. Her and her sister were posted on Craig's List. They were being housed with their five brothers in a tiny hamster cage! Thankfully neither were pregnant and Theta has become quite the little squish.

Isosceles is Theta's sister, she's an agouti hood. She's never gotten over her skittishness fully (they weren't handled much for their first nine weeks!) but she's slowly coming around.

Tiki was a pet store purchase, I admit. She was returned to the store twice because a snake wouldn't eat her and I just couldn't let her end up with such a fate. She's black except for the smallest fleck of white on her lower tummy. She's slowly but surely coming around to people.

Meme is a sweet PEW girl, a little younger than two. She's very loving both to her rattie friends and her human friends. She's got long term respitory damage and is doing quite well on anitbiotics.

Cecil is a cute blue blaze faced girl. She's around a year and a half I believe. Given to us by someone faced with eviction over the number of rats she was keeping. Cecil tolerates people but she has a lot of work to do.

Sasha came in with Cecil, she's a black hooded around the same age. She is also pretty handshy, but coming around nicely. She just had a massive tumor removed from her shoulder and is recovering well.

Cirrus was given to me by a pet store along with her mother and three siblings. She's a absolutely adorable beige hooded dumbo. Very sweet and very kissey! She's nine weeks old.

Starr is Cirrus's little black capped sister. She's a little less friendly, but she seems to be coming around.

We also have two mice in residency.
Velma is a cute little agouti girl, age unknown. She was going to be sent back to the breeding farm she came from, but I stepped in and brought her home. She loves running in her wheel.

Victoria was adopted from OHS as a companion for Velma. She's a cute little PEW that loves to scamper up and down arms.

We've also got a kitty foster right now. Patches is a big three year old calico girl. She's been here two days and just finally came out from under the bed!

Stay tuned for our adventures!