Rattie Update.

I discovered a mammary tumor on Pepper yesterday. Those suckers just pop up overnight it seems, because almost every day I am checking the girls for lumps. I'm not having it removed. Pepper has too many other health issues. She's always been smaller and weaker than her sister Poppy. Pepper is around 10 months old but she's as small as a 3 month old rat.

The pet store I got her from (Same place I got Basil & Sage from.) had her and Poppy in cedar chips, which are toxic to rats. It can cause long term respiratory issues, which Pepper has. They were selling the rats as feeders. She's always had breathing issues, wheezy lungs. She had a few episodes back in September where she would be struggling to breath and getting cold all over. She's been on antibiotics and now she's also on Prednisolone. It is an anti-inflammatory so it helps with her lungs. We call her my "asthma" rat. Hopefully the prednisolone will also slow the growth of her tumor as well.


My Basil boy!  He is getting older. I'm not sure of Basil's age. I would say he is some where past a year already. He's starting to show signs of Degenerative Osteoarthritis. His back legs are weaker and sometimes stiff when he walks. He doesn't lift his tail when he walks anymore either, he drags it. He's having trouble climbing, some times he will slip a bit because of his back legs. Poor guy. Hopefully he doesn't get paralysis. He doesn't seem to be in any pain right now. If he shows signs I'll have to take him to the vet so he can be prescribed a pain killer. I've also started treating him with the prednisolone since it's a corticosteroid and can help with inflammation.

Everyone else *crosses fingers* is healthy and doing well. I'm hopefully going to take Pepper and a few others to the park with me tomorrow.