Ratablog

Zoe

Zoe is not well.

A quick description of her problems is that she is slow, off-balance, and lethargic. Not only is that quick, it's accurate. I took her to the vet on Monday, and he started his discussion with me by saying, "It's an interesting case." He agreed she's slow and off-balance; she didn't get lethargic until the last couple of days. She's not blind, nor is there anything wrong that an x-ray would reveal.

Dr. G doesn't feel she has a pituitary tumor, based on the symptoms above, so it's probably neurological. The two most likely canditates are a stroke or a bad reaction to mite treatment.

She had been scratching pretty heavily about a month ago, so I treated her with something given to us (off-label) by Dr. G, and we had succesfully treated at least ten rats with it: a solution of 0.29% fipronil.

There's a risk with any treatment for parasites: the product is designed to kill (There's a rule in toxicology: The dose makes the poison. In other words, that which is non-toxic can also be toxic in large doses--see digitalis.). You want to use a dose large enough to kill the parasites but not harm the rat. This was the smallest and most controlled application I've ever done when treating for parasites (a bit on a q-tip rubbed into the area between her shoulder blades, versus the couple of squirts we had applied before), she still got sick. We were also treating Oliver for parasites, using the same strategy...so I wonder...why Zoe?

My beautiful licky girl is no longer licky; she's no longer as active as she used to be. During playtime she more often than not wants to go to sleep (in fact, sleeping is now one of her favorite things to do). We can't leave her unsupervised during playtime as she falls off the bed when she's not sleeping.

It's not like she walks off the edge; it's more like she remembers them, but her balance is off and she loses it at the edge of the bed, or almost like she doesn't remember exactly how to deal with the edge. As a result, she's now living by herself in a single-level cage, eating baby food because she no longer holds her food in her hands.

I'd give anything to have her lick my nose once more.

UPDATE: Thank you all for your well-wishes. I forgot to mention we are treating her, with Baytril for any possible infection, and Prednisone for any possible inflammation. At best they'll help her; at worst, they won't make her any worse.

Oliver and his Girls

Oliver has settled in with the girls:

In the cage with the girls. From left to right they are Oliver, Kanga, Roo, and Neiko is on the bottom.

Everybody has some guacamole during playtime. Clockwise from top left: Kanga, Oliver, Roo, Neiko, and Zoe.

Happy Halloween/ Weekend update

In updates: Misto's feet are still blue, but he is hanging on. Oliver moved in with the girls. Zoe is having trouble holding food with her front paws and she's having balance problems...we'll be calling the vet tomorrow as soon as they open. This might be a stroke, or a pituitary tumor (or something else entirely...after misdiagnosing Kanga's lump, I should probably leave it to the vets.)

All in all, a bit of a down weekend, although it is very good to see Ol cuddled up with another rat. Oh, and Jack was a pretty good boy during the photo shoot.

The Misto report

We haven't had much Misto news lately because everything was holding steady. Today, though, a new and not good development...I noticed his feet were looking blue.

I took him in to the vet so Dr. F could see him. Truly Dr. F has been amazing through this...today he had me come in with no appointment and spent close to 45 minutes with us...much of it just hanging with Misto. We did an aminophylline nebulized treatment there, and I have oral aminophylline now, to try to open up his airway some. But the doctor did confirm that his feet, as well as his tounge, are definitely showing the signs of oxygen insufficieny.

Misto isn't gasping for breath or panicking, and if he has a reason to be (like Rab is trying to get his cookie, or the doc wants to listen to his chest) he can still be downright fiesty. Because of this I'm not ready to let him go, and Dr. F agreed with that completely.

And I'm actually pretty amazed that he's still with us, to be honest...not that it makes it easier to face bad signs now.

Neiko

I think I now know why Neiko was so friendly with Oliver. She's in heat.

Oliver, however, is ignoring her.

Intro Update

Oliver's intros to the girls continue to go well. There was a minor bump in the road; fortunately, it didn't last.

Wednesday we switched to vanilla extract, rather than almond extract. I think that was a bad move on our part. Little Roo jumped on Oliver, Oliver didn't like it and he got very puffy--that is, his hair started standing on end, a sign of agitation, and a scuffle broke out. I seperated them with the dustpan I had on hand for just such an emergency, and I kept him away from the girls for a minute or two. He calmed down, but he wasn't real thrilled with Roo, nor Roo with Oliver. Whenever Oliver approached Roo, or she found herself near him, one of them would shriek--I think it was Roo. Upon reflection, I'm about 99 44/100 % sure Roo was trying to lick the vanilla extract from Oliver's back, and she may have gotten a bit rough with him.

One thing I noticed--Oliver seemed to really spend a lot of time sniffing Neiko. When she started raising her tail, I decided intro time was up, just in case she was in heat.

Due to hockey, there was no intro attempt Thursday night. Friday we went back to almond extract--just a small amount. Oliver and Roo seemed to forget all about the other night, although every now and then Oliver would sidle up to Neiko or Roo. It was just a dominance move, and it wasn't frequent. I don't recall him getting puffy at all, and they were out together for over 90 minutes.

Yesterday was the biggest test. We put them together with no additional scent and I was ready with welding gloves and a dustpan. There was a brief scuffle between Oliver and Roo, but nothing came of it. Oliver did spend some time chasing after Neiko and sniffing her private bits, but she didn't react quite the same way she did the other night. In fact, she sniffed him back, and they also groomed each other.

This morning we put them together again without any scent, and we also included two small tubes. This is a bit risky because in the event one rat really goes after another, there's a chance the attacked rat might be trapped by the aggressor. A tube at least has a back door; OTOH, it's still a slightly enclosed space.

I think Roo sees Oliver as a threat to the pecking order in the cage. She made a couple of dominance moves toward Oliver (sidling and mounting) but it didn't seem to bother Oliver. Also, it seems Oliver really likes Neiko, as you'll see below.

Oliver

Clockwise from the upper left-hand corner, they are Oliver, Zoe, Kanga, Neiko, and Roo.

This was supposed to be a picture of Oliver grooming Neiko. Instead, it's a picture of him telling Neiko she's finished.

Neiko grooms Oliver. Roo stands by to tell her if she missed a spot.

Neiko was actually quite submmissive to Oliver. Here, she laid down before him, and he cuddled up to her and started taking a nap. It seems he has a girlfriend.

We plan to continue the intros throughout the week, and on Saturday we're going to scrub the girls cage really well and put him in there.

Whew!

That sigh of relief you heard at about 4:40 Eastern was me receiving the good news about Kanga's abcess. She's looking better already, and we'll post a pic of the site later on...maybe.

Oliver's neutering stitches came out today, and after Dr. G extracted a promise from Abita to not sue him if he's wrong, we had an OK to let Oliver mingle with the girls. He had about an hour of playtime with them and it went beautifully!

Unlike the last time we tried an intro with him, we followed all the guidelines. Everyone got a big dab of almond extract on them so they'd all smell alike (that is, like cookies). The bed was neutralized with no toys and fresh blankets. We brought them all out at the same time and I had a dustpan in hand so I could separate them if I had to.

Fortunately, I didn't have to. The girls all sniffed Oliver immediately, then started ignoring him. Oliver climbed into the tray I used to carry the girls to playtime in; realizing what a distraction girl smell is, I dumped him out of the tray and got it out of the way. He was very nervous at first, not moving much, but after about fifteen minutes he started grooming, which I took as a sign of his relaxing. Then he started pooping, which I took as a sign that he's a slob. Typical male.

He did start to mingle with the girls, and they with him. He spent some time smelling their under-bits, and even crawled under the blanket with Neiko (broken up by us). They all had snacks together--well, as together as rats do when they split to different places to keep other rats from stealing their bit of ginger bread. Abita put it best: After thirty minutes, they were ignoring each other like old friends.

Today I dipped my finger in the almond extract and I put a good amount on them. Tomorrow, we'll use a q-tip to put a small, measured amount on them, and on Thursday or Friday we'll try no extra scent. If everything goes really well, we'll put them underneath a cage topper during playtime over the weekend to see how they get along in an enclosed space...and hopefully, next week we'll be able to give the girl's cage (the biggest one) a good scrubbing so we can move Oliver in with them.

Good news!

This is why I'm not a vet...I can't tell a bad lump from a not-so-bad lump. Kanga has an abscess. (Whew.) The green stuff under the scab was a little nasty, but some antibiotics and some aggressive cleaning (which she just loooves) will take care of it.

And Oliver has his stitches out and a the o.k. to start meeting the girls.

Kanga's new lump

This does not look good:

Already the tissue looks necrotic or scabby. It doesn't seem to be an abscess, although in this case we are hoping against hope that it is...we'll be calling the vet tomorrow for an appointment to get it checked out.

Also, she's dropping weight even though she eats like a fiend. (As I type, she's balanced on the edge of the food dish with her head inside, crunching away.)

Poor girl...this is just not fair.

We are still here...

Oliver is healing up (stitches come out Thursday) and Misto is hanging in there. The bad news: it looks like Kanga has another lump coming in already.

We'll fill in some details later...