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Rat dramas
Mar. 29th, 2014 09:34 pmRIP Benny [ 20 months old]
Spinal degeneration, paraplegia and associated problems took their toll and today I took Benny-rat to the vet's to be put to sleep. He or one of the others had savaged his tail bloody yesterday and that was the final straw; the indication that the tail had now died and was a sign that Benny's system was breaking down. He had no feeling in the tail or indeed, his back end. I've been quite upset the rest of the day as it is always worse when you have to intervene.
Then this evening I found that Coconut, who had only slightly damaged her stitches after tumour surgery over a week ago, has opened them up quite extensively. It is semi-healed and appears clean, but I applied Betadine externally and antibiotic internally and tried to attach bandages. They're not going to stay, so tomorrow it's to a pharmacy for better bandages and/or Coles for superglue. Not kidding; apparently glueing rats back together is not unknown in the rodent fancy.
She'll stay isolated tonight, because I'm not sure whether it's jumping around that has split the stitches or whether her mates have been helping her. Prky, if you have any recommendations for treatment, since she was yours first, let me know. She doesn't seem to be in pain or even to recognise there's a problem and she's back to grabbing all the Cheerios when I offer her a handful to choose from.
Nobody else get sick. You hear that; Finn, Gil, Nigel and Eli? Not a sniffle!
Spinal degeneration, paraplegia and associated problems took their toll and today I took Benny-rat to the vet's to be put to sleep. He or one of the others had savaged his tail bloody yesterday and that was the final straw; the indication that the tail had now died and was a sign that Benny's system was breaking down. He had no feeling in the tail or indeed, his back end. I've been quite upset the rest of the day as it is always worse when you have to intervene.
Then this evening I found that Coconut, who had only slightly damaged her stitches after tumour surgery over a week ago, has opened them up quite extensively. It is semi-healed and appears clean, but I applied Betadine externally and antibiotic internally and tried to attach bandages. They're not going to stay, so tomorrow it's to a pharmacy for better bandages and/or Coles for superglue. Not kidding; apparently glueing rats back together is not unknown in the rodent fancy.
She'll stay isolated tonight, because I'm not sure whether it's jumping around that has split the stitches or whether her mates have been helping her. Prky, if you have any recommendations for treatment, since she was yours first, let me know. She doesn't seem to be in pain or even to recognise there's a problem and she's back to grabbing all the Cheerios when I offer her a handful to choose from.
Nobody else get sick. You hear that; Finn, Gil, Nigel and Eli? Not a sniffle!