Ratablog

Bandit

As Abita mentioned before, Bandit is scabby. What she didn't mention is that he's also become bitey--again.

Before the trip to the vet, Abita tried to get him out of the cage but he wouldn't come out of a box he was hiding in. I reached into the box and Bandit let me know he didn't want to go to the vet when he bit my left pinkie.

It bled...and bled and bled and bled. We got him to the vet, where scrapings from two places showed no evidence of parasites, and I got home and my finger was still bleeding. After about three hours I went to my primary care where some steri-strips finally got the bleeding stopped.

(I'm also on some antibiotics that don't exactly agree with me, but that's not important right now.)

We had some hints he might be reverting to his old bitey ways. A couple of times when we tried to pick up Kanga (before she passed), Bandit nipped at us--we thought he might have been protecting her. Last Friday, the day before the vet trip, he bit at me without breaking the skin. I was wondering if he was bi-polar and was just entering the manic phase.

In an attempt to narrow down the cause of the scabs we separated Bandit from Oliver and Neiko, as one cause of scabs might be injuries from the other rats. In order to improve his mood, I've also started trust training him again.

Just four days later the scabs are not as severe and I can't detect any new ones. His mood also seems to have improved, though there may be one of two reasons for that: It may have been the trust training, or it may be he's just more comfortable without the scabs and is therefore in a better mood.

Abita and I are also wondering about the cause of his scabs. Because we don't want him to forget his cagemates I've been taking Bandit out with Oliver and Neiko for playtime and he's never been attacked. He squabbles with Oliver a bit but Oliver always submits. Neiko grooms him, but I think it's more her way of getting him to groom her in return. Nothing suggests he's anything but the alpha and I'm not sure attacks from the other rats are the reason behind his scabs.

Abita and I think there may be another possibility: We wonder if he may have developed an allergy to the bedding we use. Oliver and Neiko are on Carefresh (regular Carefresh, not the Ultra); while Bandit's in a single cage he's been on fleece blankets. A permanent change in bedding may be in order.

So, in a nutshell: Bandit's scabs seem to be going away, his mood is improving a bit, and when we put him back in with Neiko and Oliver it may well be on fleece blankets.

Posted by Publius at June 28, 2006 09:30 PM