After Kono's passing, a new alpha emerged in the boy's cage: Metro. Little quiet Metro has groomed his way to the top. I always thought it would have been Calle, because he was always challenging Kono. As far as I can tell, he hasn't challenged Metro at all.
However, Metro may not be with us that much longer. He has developed a lump on his side; it's similar to Witter's in that it's hard and cannot be moved too much. Due to his age, I'm going to let nature take its course.
Olie, it seems, may have hemorrhoids. A few weeks after his apparent leg injury, I noticed some bloody poops while the rats were out for playtime. Olie was the first rat I picked up and turned over, and his anus was bright red with blood. All of the other rats were fine. It was two days before I could get him to the vet, and of course, his anus and poops were fine. The vet did do a test on his poops and nothing untoward was found. We filed it under the it's-cleared-up-so-monitor-the-situation file.
Last week, Abita and I purchased a large five-foot tall cage and moved the Original Six rats into it, so we could free up a couple of cages for the new arrivals. After returning from Pennsylvania on Saturday, I noticed some very soft poops in the big cage, and an inspection of bottoms showed Olie had diarrhea. We decided to treat him with yogurt for a couple of days and if he was still having problems, we'd start him on some Dri-Tail the third day.
Last night, during playtime, Olie sat down on a piece of cardboard to groom himself, and when he moved, I noticed a smear on the cardboard that looked like blood. I flipped him over again, and sure enough, there was bright-red blood on his tail. I set him down, and he pooped--some blood was on the poopie.
Abita held him while I cleaned his anus with a damp cotton ball, and we could see no injury. While discussing what might be the problem, I had a flashback to a fourteen year-old personal experience, and I realized he may have had a ruptured hemorrhoid.
Because the blood is bright red, I'm not too concerned it's a serious problem, but I'll discuss it with a vet this week, when I take Calle in for an apparent sneezing problem.
As far as the girls are concerned, they're in much better shape, overall, than my boys. Leather is fine, if a little overweight, and Schwartzie, too, is fine, except for her obesity.
Pinky, on the other hand, is being treated with a diuretic, Lasix, for possible congestive heart failure. She had been having the 'hiccups' for quite awhile, but some trips to the vet showed no apparent problem. Eventually, though, she began to get grunty and slightly lethargic (for her, that means she slowed down during playtime). A careful listen to her lungs by Dr. G revealed some fluid in her lungs, so we treated her with Baytril for any infection, and we're continuing to give her lasix to keep her from retaining fluids. She now flings herself out of the cage whenever we open a door, so we're glad she's feeling better.
Posted by Publius at September 6, 2004 08:34 PM