Rat in a Box

Don't read this one while you are eating lunch.

Ok, since we found blood in Ratsie's droppings, I've been paying closer attention to rat poop. Last night the boys were out for playtime, and when I cleaned up after MoonPie, I saw some white mucous coating one of his droppings.

It looked almost like a piece of plastic thread, and I wondered if he'd eaten something inedible. I looked through a magnifying glass, and the white thing...moved.

I tried to get Victor to look, but when I said "I'm afraid I see a worm in MoonPie's stool," he was not as inclined to get up close. I sealed the tissue with the sample in a plastic bag and hit the internet. I wasn't even sure if rats could get worms, if they do, that might explain Ratsie's bleeding.

The Rat Guide is usually my first stop. I was reading up on endo-parasites when I saw:

Hymenolepis diminuta (tapeworm) requires an intermediate host such as flea, cockroach, or grain beetle for transmission. It is found in the anterior ileum (part of intestine) of the rat.

Grain beetles. I have been half-heartedly battling tiny reddish-brown beetles all summer...we found them in a bag of dog biscuits, and pretty soon they were all over the house. I say the battle is half-hearted because I've pretty much just swept them up and thrown them away (and tossed any dry goods where I've found one), but I haven't made an all-out attempt to check everything in the pantry. I see them on my desk sometimes, so I know they've made it up to the rat room. I had absolutely no idea they could be harmful.

First thing this morning, we called the vet and told them we were bringing in samples. I had MoonPie's sample from last night, I bagged a bunch of the droppings from this morning, and Victor even took a sample in for the dog.

At lunchtime the vet called me back. He wasn't finding anything in the droppings but, well, rat poop. "Are you sure you saw something move?" he asked.

At this point, of course, I started to doubt myself. I described the white plastic thread-looking thing, and he went back to check that particular sample again. "I found the mucous," he said. "No worms and no eggs. A little bit of cardboard. You didn't get a picture, did you?"

In fact, I had thought about taking a picture last night...because when you use the macro setting, then blow a picture up to its full 8 megapixel on a 17 inch monitor, boy can you see it. That's how we saw the lice from Larry's fur a couple years ago. But last night, I'll be honest, I was too creeped out reopen the sealed bag, because I'd seen something that was moving.

The vet was very gracious. He was willing to entertain the notion that the boys might have worms, that I did see something, and somehow the samples he had under his microscope were false negative. I was mortified, and a little afraid that I was hallucinating. (The only narcotics I had for my surgery were in the IV at the hospital on Tuesday, so they must be out of my system by now...but maybe I can blame a fentanyl flashback.)

In any event...now I'll be keeping an even closer eye on the rat poop, even to the point of macro photography. Don't worry, I won't post those pictures.

Victor here, reporting Abita is home and is resting & eating jello. The initial pathology says the growth is benign.

Mine, this time.

Unfortunately my vet wasn't able to schedule me, so I have to go to a surgeon I've only met once. (When you think about it, vets may have a harder job than human doctors...they need to know the anatomies of many more species than just humans, and the work they do is often on a much smaller scale.)

I'm going in early Tuesday morning, for surgery at 9. If I'm lucky, they'll only need to remove the right lobe and isthmus of my thyroid; the mass will be sent for pathology right away, and if it doesn't look malignant, they'll close me up and I should get to come home Tuesday evening. If it does look like cancer, they'll remove the whole gland and I'll be admitted overnight.

The boys are being good and haven't had any emergencies. MoonPie's abscess has healed up beautifully, and I didn't see any blood in the bedding today, so I'm hoping Ratsie is doing better, too. I just weighed everyone and nobody's losing weight. We have a few sniffles, but we have an emergency Baytril supply if they get worse. Now I'm croosing my fingers that they all stay well 'til I'm back on my feet.

MoonPie's abscess came to a head the other night (and quite neatly, too), so we are giving him Bactrim until the open sore heals up. (Also topical Nolvasan and silver sulfadiazine, but that's easy to administer.) He is not wild about the Bactrim.

Last night, I brought out the syringe and medicine while all the rats were still out for playtime. Of course, everybody had to come see what MoonPie was getting, and everybody wanted some of what MoonPie was getting, just because it was MoonPie getting it and not them.

Rat psychology being what it is, as soon as all the other boys wanted it, so did Moonpie...at least for 3/4 of the dose, then he wised up.

(Just to see what would happen, I filled a clean syringe with water...you would have thought I was dispensing liquid yogies, the way the boys pushed and fought for a turn.)

Quick housekeeping note...I just deleted the 90 MB of spam that had our e-mail clogged up, so if you sent us anything since...it looks like September 17, maybe...I'm afraid it's gone. (I like the server-side spam filter, but I can't figure out how to make it automatically empty the trash, and sometimes I don't catch on for a few days that my inbox is empty because nothing is getting through.)

Sometimes some of the pictures we post end up on sits that aren't ours. I know I could take steps to make it harder to copy them, or at least watermark them with a copyright note, but to be honest, it's too much trouble. Victor takes umbrage that a picture of Calle eating his birthday cake has ended up illustrating a lot of web articles on obesity (but we can't deny that Calle was a very fat rat), and he does contact web site owners to ask them to remove the image. (Apparently a lot of them got conned, because they got the picture on a CD of clip art they paid for.)

It doesn't really bother me if people want to use the images, although if they add text that is obscene or nasty, I'd probably be pretty upset to see it. Otherwise, it's the nature of the internet...it isn't right to steal, but if somebody copies one of our shots because they think our rats are cute, well, I'm glad to share.

I was on Facebook today looking at "Pieces of Flair." I did a search for "rat," and as I flipped through, there was Calle eating his cake. (It's on page 18, if you want to look for it.) I hope Victor won't mind; I added it to my Facebook page. (And someday when I have time, I'll make flair with some of our other rats.)

I realized today that I mostly write about the rats that aren't doing well. Part of that, I think, is that I use this blog as therapy...I'm writing about things that have me worried...but it also makes it sound like we have a rat hospice here, which isn't quite the case yet.

Also, Lynn asked how the boys were doing since the loss of Mercutio and Larry, so this give me a chance to answer that.

Actually, I'm not sure the brothers really notice that Mercutio is gone. I hope that doesn't sound mean...there are still enough rats for a big cuddly pile, and that's how these boys spend 98% of their time. The other two percent is in pursuit of food.

Oliver, though, is by himself without Larry. Victor is pretty much carrying Oliver around with him everywhere but work and the grocery store, and Oliver is a very people-oriented rat...he loves to snuggle in your arm and groom you...but I wouldn't be surprised if he missed having a rat to boss around.

(I did check the adoptable rat list at the local rescue, and they don't have any young boys right now. I'm not even sure what would be best for Oliver, since he can be a bit of a bully...I was thinking a pair of boys who haven't hit their testosterone surge yet. In the past, anytime we've needed a rat, one seems to have found its way here, so we'll see what happens.)

I posted last night's entry before it was really done, because I turned around and saw more blood in the rat cage and got off the computer to take care of Ratsie.

In case anybody is trying to read this while eating lunch: I'm going to have some details of Ratsie's symptoms that might be a little unpleasant. I have what I think is a good reason, though...there have been many nights that I sat in front of a computer desperately searching for information about what might be going on with one of the rats. I want to go ahead and document this in case it ever helps some other rat Googler.

So, Ratsie is passing bright red blood along with his stool. Thursday through Sunday morning, it wasn't too much blood, just enough to coat the droppings, but last night he left blood stains on the bedding, three or four spots each about the size of a penny. I think he might be straining a bit as well. We put him in the hospital cage so we could monitor him over night, and thankfully he didn't seem to lose any more blood.

As I mentioned, the vet did a rectal exam and didn't see any tumors or polyps, but of course he wasn't using a scope. Because the blood is bright red, he thinks it is coming from the lower GI tract (the colon, probably) rather than the stomach.

We have only encountered rectal bleeding in one other rat, Olie. He had a couple of episodes like what we're seeing with Ratsie, starting shortly before his second birthday. It did turn out to be a tumor, although it was three months before the tumor grew to the point where the vet could feel it. He was active and eating normally the whole time, and never seemed bothered by it. He died at home; we got back from work one evening and found him curled up in the cage, being watched over by his sister Leather.

Ratsie's lab results came back negative for giardia, but we're going to finish up the course of Flagyl in case there is some other infection. I also picked up another drug, Carafate, which is sometimes used for proctitis.

I'm leaning away toward having Ratsie x-rayed right now. Even if we found a tumor, I don't think surgery is a good option in this case. I'd rather concentrate on keeping him comfortable and happy with his brothers.

Last week was just awful. I had been worried about Mercutio not improving on the Baytril, but I didn't expect to lose him so quickly. Larry was a complete shock. (The vet thinks he probably had a clot in his lung, because of how fast he went downhill, and on necropsy, his heart and lungs were pretty healthy looking.)

On Thursday afternoon, after we'd decided it was best for Mercutio to let him go, the vet and I were talking about how old the boys are: 22 months for the brothers, and about the same for Oliver, we estimate. Chances are, things will be getting rougher.

And on Thursday evening, I found blood in some droppings when I cleaned the big cage.

It turned out to be Ratsie. The blood is his only symptom; he's actually gained about five grams over the last month, and he's acting fine. We took him to the vet Saturday morning, where he got an exam that no animal regardless of species enjoys, and the doctor didn't see any polyps or feel any lumps. The fecal sample is at the lab now, and Ratsie is on Flagyl.

I just looked at the memory card from my camera, and realized I have the last pictures of Larry and Mercutio.


This was Merc on September 2.


Larry on September 6, pausing while building his newspaper fort. He pretty much used the entire sports page and had the food dish completely covered when he was done.