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Hey guys, I was writing this before the Unpleasantness but I got sidetracked; my partner and I got five rats, three and then two, and they are amazing little chewy buggers who luckily only eat our due-to-be-replaced carpet when they're out and about and I am absolutely going to post a bunch of pics These are our first three back when they were tiny things;  Furberus This is Buffy/Buffet, who we're pretty sure is either mostly blind or just very clumsy but is the biggest pig of them all;  She loves to climb dressing gowns This is Faith, happily chugging malt paste because it is like crack for rats;  She flops like a limp noodle whenever she's picked up and looks absolutely ridiculous This is Willow, who is normally an absolute darling but sometimes goes after my partner's blood with a vengeance;  Definitely the top dog, but still a silly sausage Here they are in one of their Sputniks at around six months old, Faith on the left, Buffy middle and Willow on the left;  The only way to tell the difference between Faith and Willow is that Willow has slightly lighter fur and a tiny notch on her right ear So naturally we got two more brown fancy rats, Dawn and Tara, from the same breeder and likely same mother so you can probably see how identifying them is going to be an issue  Tara has the darkest tail of all of them but Dawn looks like a clone of Faith, which is definitely not canon and will cause problems once they're older and need meds but oh well, what are you gonna do? Importantly though, we introduced them successfully (here is the post carrier, small cage step ratpile)  Their main cage is much better than this, don't worry, this is the first layout for it and we've had loads since;  And I wasn't expecting this, but Buffy and Dawn are getting along great   I didn't have pets back when I played videogames with Bird and it's a shame things went down as they did when I got them so she might not get to see the pics, but they're excellent and great for disposing of bits of apple and the occasional pizza crust and hopefully she's still lurking 
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Jun 30, 2020 18:03
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Just wanted to say that all these rats are beautiful. 
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Jul 3, 2020 04:20
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Antimony is almost 3 years old and does not like to pose for pictures while eating snacks.
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Jul 4, 2020 07:22
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Rat orb.
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Jul 4, 2020 07:29
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Smoke Jaguar coming straight out the motherfucking crevices:
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Jul 14, 2020 02:32
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One of my girls just ruined a second set of speakers then aggressively groomed my hand. Nice try but I'm still mad. And now I have to rearrange my entire desk so no wire is within tooth's reach, even with cord protectors.
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Jul 19, 2020 04:50
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Outside "play"time  
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Jul 19, 2020 06:46
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ThreeStep posted:One of my girls just ruined a second set of speakers then aggressively groomed my hand. Nice try but I'm still mad. Yeah I moved mine under the desk. They love chomping at the diaphragms.
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Jul 19, 2020 08:18
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I need some advice for a sick rat. One of my rats had been looking a little listless and having a little trouble breathing, so I took her in to the vet. The vet said she had pneumonia, and prescribed some antibiotics, Vibramycin. I've been giving it to her, but she hasn't really been improving. What can I do at this point? Is there another kind of antibiotic I can move onto, or some other treatment? And is there any way to get this without another costly vet appointment, or is that inevitable?
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Jul 19, 2020 18:38
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How long has she been on the vibramycin? If it’s been a couple days with no improvement, call your vet and ask for a different antibiotic. My vet has used dexamethasone in addition to an antibiotic for pneumonia, you could ask about that. They shouldn’t have to charge to examine her again, but you’ll have to pay for the new meds obviously. A cool mist humidifier running near the cage for 10-15 minutes every couple hours can help. Also try to keep her eating—give her extra yummy high-calorie foods to keep her strength up. Some rat people I know give dark chocolate chips to help with lower respiratory congestion. I’ve tried it and am not sure it helps but the rats sure enjoy it. Pneumonia is hard for rats because it’s going to exacerbate any myco infection, and all rats just have myco. I nursed one rat through a particularly bad bout of pneumonia and myco and she ended up partially paralyzed and had to be hand fed baby food. My vet ratcheted her all the way up to intramuscular Baytril injections. That was not fun. Trying to stick a scared, skinny rat in the thigh muscle isn’t easy. She made it through, but I had to continue hand feeding for the remainder. She was a tough girl.
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Jul 19, 2020 20:46
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Jaded Burnout posted:Yeah I moved mine under the desk. They love chomping at the diaphragms. That's what I ended up doing. And bought an even cheaper pair of speakers this time. On the plus side, plenty of room for rativities on my desk.
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Jul 20, 2020 05:24
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 Peaches is gettin' chonky, but I love her she's so fluffy  Beans continues to be an amazing model
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Jul 28, 2020 00:17
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clockwork chaos posted:
Great kids. This is Coffee, he's a very good boy.  
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Jul 28, 2020 07:58
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oohhhh he's so pretty
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Jul 28, 2020 08:13
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I'm not sure anyone's posted it yet, but this diagram has made sense of a few behaviors I wasn't quite sure about :
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Aug 14, 2020 19:14
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Pancake is the best mood.
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Aug 14, 2020 19:16
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Jack Trades posted:Pancake is the best mood. Flat rat
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Aug 14, 2020 20:23
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This lady is 3 years old.
Animal-Mother fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Aug 21, 2020 |
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Aug 21, 2020 02:13
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Animal-Mother posted:This lady is 3 years old. She's a cutie.
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Aug 21, 2020 06:55
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Aug 27, 2020 23:20
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has anyone treated for rat fur mites before? one of our girls had a scab on her upper back and we watched it and it healed up mostly but then she messed with it more, and my wife found scabs on her cheek a couple days ago. I see a few little tiny spots here and there on her tail but nothing like her cheek. her sister doesn't have anything. I ordered some moxidectin after looking up what I can safely do at home right now, and if it's fur mites, it should work, and if not, I'm not sure what else to do. if it's dry skin, I have a humidifier going already. if it's an allergy, that's annoying but I'll try to work through it with her. obviously I'm going to treat both of them with the moxidectin, sterilize the cage and kennel, wash all their fleece/bedding/soft toys, and wash other things or bake them. but we have a room we use for floor time, and I can wash the blankets and stuff, but what about the carpet or things I can't really wash? what about our bed we have them on sometimes? we were going to skip floor time for a few days or a week or something after treatment and cage decontamination, but I don't know if it's even necessary. we're in an apartment and doing laundry in the laundry room, especially during the pandemic, is a loving pain in the rear end, and a lot of stuff is going to be hand washed. e: I'm not really happy about trying to diagnose her myself but I can't safely get to the vet right now  I don't have a car.
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Aug 28, 2020 00:23
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One of my guys had pretty bad skin basically his entire life, and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for it. Vet said it wasn't mites, and his 3 brothers were fine. I did give him a bath which helped for a while, I think he was having a build up of buck grease (his skin was yellow, but not jaundiced) which is I guess unlikely for female rats.
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Aug 28, 2020 00:29
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snoo posted:has anyone treated for rat fur mites before? Yeah, that deffo sounds like mites. I guess they could be lice, but I've only ever had my rats catch mites. My vet always uses revolution - whatever you do, stay the gently caress away from ivermectin. It's both ineffective and dangerous. (Not that you said you were going to do this, but I've known owners who have lost rats to that stuff so I figured I'd mention it.) It's not likely that the mites would be in the play area, since there's no food for them there. If you're really worried, you could switch their play area for a few days if that's possible - mites can only live without a host for about 72 hours, IIRC. Sorry that you have to do the diagnosis yourself. Good luck, and remember to clean the cage before and after the treatment.
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Aug 28, 2020 02:20
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A couple of our girls had them, we think. I believe it was in their case malnutrition. We had run out of rat food and were unable to get any more for some days. During that time we fed them seeds, grain and nuts along with bites of whatever foods we had been eating. Ultimately, their condition only improved when we got them back on their food and a balanced diet. They shook the little things in few days after that.
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Aug 28, 2020 04:22
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two weeks since moxidectin treatment and peaches' scabs are almost fully healed. she has a couple small patches of missing fur but hopefully it'll grow back soon. gotta keep those nails trimmed too. I have to give her treats and have my wife hold her so I can examine the spots 
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Sep 13, 2020 21:46
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I'm so glad 
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Sep 13, 2020 21:58
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snoo posted:two weeks since moxidectin treatment and peaches' scabs are almost fully healed. she has a couple small patches of missing fur but hopefully it'll grow back soon. gotta keep those nails trimmed too. Very good ratblob.
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Sep 13, 2020 22:08
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Hey Snoo, did you close down your patreon?
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Sep 13, 2020 22:25
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i think having the humidifier going and occasionally treating the worst areas with a little hydrocortisone and keeping her from licking it off was helpful as well. we've been teaching them some commands and they're doing great at that too  Falstaff posted:Hey Snoo, did you close down your patreon? yeah, i did much earlier this year i think. i totally forgot about that 
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Sep 13, 2020 23:55
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Aw, that's too bad. I was wondering why I hadn't seen any new content in a while. I'm glad your mite treatment's been showing good results with Peaches.
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Sep 14, 2020 00:13
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One of my rats started sneezing a bunch and what looks like silent hiccups a couple hours ago. She's snuggled up in the pod with her sister, but when it started she was pretty active and eagerly taking food from me. My weak-rear end googling says it might be myco or allergies, but also a lot of "see a vet." You never realize how few places treat rats until you spend an hour calling every single vet and clinic within an hour's drive radius. Because my primary vet is booked solid through the start of October. How hosed are things? Edit: got them out for free roam and she seems to be doing better, no hiccups. ThreeStep fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Sep 17, 2020 |
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Sep 17, 2020 00:06
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 I feel personally attacked.
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Oct 8, 2020 10:28
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I still miss my rats most every day.
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Oct 8, 2020 19:18
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Have two sleepy rat idiots: 
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Oct 8, 2020 19:57
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Very Good
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Oct 8, 2020 20:21
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Antimony is recovering nicely from surgery, for a very old rat. Her staples were removed yesterday and she'll only eat her medicine if it's mixed with warm cream cheese. Ghost likes to hang out in this box of paper scraps. 
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Oct 9, 2020 22:03
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Good kids.
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Oct 9, 2020 22:31
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Ghost is very handsome.
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Oct 10, 2020 00:19
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anyone ever dealt with some kind of lower spine or tail sprain in their rats? whatever it is, it was very sudden, yesterday she was able to do the spin trick and hop and climb things just fine. I assume she might've fallen/injured herself sometime during that floor time or in the cage later yesterday. this morning my wife noticed she was squeaking when would she touch the rat's lower back/rump area. eating/drinking fine, no side sucking, activity is normal except she can't use her tail to balance so no climbing and she can't clean herself as easily, or stand up on just her hind legs. she mostly drags her tail but keeps her rear end up a bit. she tried to climb to my wife's shoulder earlier on her own accord and squealed the whole time. I gave her some metacam and will continue to for a few days, and the ramps in the cage are already at a shallow angle that she's used a bunch already. I might convert the cage to a single level for a while if I see she's struggling. ideally I'd take her to the vet but the pandemic + no transportation makes it difficult, if it's a sprain there isn't much they could do besides metacam and rest anyway, especially without an x-ray.
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Oct 17, 2020 22:05
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Maybe not exactly the same, but one of mine appeared to be completely paralysed in the rear, though no squeaking (as can happen from neurodegeneration), and we all assumed his days were numbered. I set him up with a cozy spot next to water, bathroom, and food, and otherwise he was OK. Then a few days or so later he got all better, to everyone's surprised. So at best guess he bruised his spine somehow and over time it subsided. I forget, is metacam an anti-inflammatory as well as a painkiller? I think steroids are otherwise the go to thing.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:04
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