Those Boy Rats!

The boy rats have kept things interesting here over the past few weeks. (I have 4 boy rats. Templeton, Teddy, Remy & Emile). First Teddy came down with a respiratory infection and had to be treated with antibiotics and separated from the other boys.

When Teddy finally rejoined the other guys, he decided he wanted to torment Emile (as usual), chase him around & fight him. Only this time their fighting got out of hand. The day after they had fought I picked up Emile to notice a scab on his one finger. At first I thought he had just torn off a fingernail fighting. But when I looked closer... he was missing half his finger!

Surprisingly, there was no blood anywhere in the cage, which is crazy. Because when a pet rat just pulls off a nail it bleeds like crazy. There was just a scab. I decided to separate Emile while his finger healed so he wouldn't pull the scab off accidentally. Less than 2 weeks later he is doing just fine, just missing part of his finger... though he doesn't seem to notice.




Then... Saturday. A little after my husband had filled all the rat's food dishes up. We noticed Templeton was heaving/gagging and drooling. He must have choked on something, most likely a lab block. He gave us such a scare because the choking went on for at least 30 minutes. He would heave and gag and drool. It was terrifying. I would pound him light on his back and sides, we tried giving him an oral syringe with water. Eventually he started to regurgitate this food colored... drool... (gross I know, sorry- but may be helpful to another rat owner out there). I kept wiping it away with a tissue. He really gave me a heart attack.

About 40 minutes later he was doing much better, though sleepy. I got this cell phone photo of him napping in our emergency rat towel. I didn't want him to have anymore solid food that day so we gave him baby food sweet potatoes for lunch and dinner. Today he his back to his normal self, thank goodness!


   
Templeton. And Templeton below yawning... check out that crazy tongue!