rattfan | R.I.P. ZACHARIAH 1 June 2007?

Zach was my 16-month-old black berkshire rat and no, that's not very old even for a rat. He had a rough start in life; dumped in a wheelie-bin when aged about 4 months, which indicates he wasn't particularly valued before that! I adopted him pretty well straight away from the friends who rescued him and he moved in with my resident rat Joshua, once the necessary posturings were over, 18 days worth. Towards the end of that time, poor Zach spent one night of sheer terror pressed up against the door of the cage, while Joshua sat above in the hammock and directed his malevolent ruby-eyed stare down upon the newcomer.

Once Joshua passed on, Luka - another rescue - arrived and was treated to exactly the same helping of violence and intimidation as Zach himself had got from Joshua. Since both were now young adults of 6, 7 months, it took me 42 days precisely to broker a peace agreement. Pretty soon they were good friends and took to mutual attack grooming, leaving both a bit motheaten but hey, if that's what they wanted!

Both the boys have had periods of chest infections and congestion, very common among rats but particularly bad news if it happens while they're that young. This time, they'd completed a heavy regime of antibiotics which helped Luka to recover quite well but Zach didn't. One of the vets I took him to thought he just hadn't been able to recover from this last bout of illness. I gave him a great deal of attention and cuddling and hand-feeding and I think he was relatively comfortable. Luka was also very good about letting Zach prop himself up on him to breathe more easily.

Zach had still been managing to climb to the hammock. I'd tried to alter the cage fittings to make things easier on him but neither of the rats liked that.

Last night I'd been cuddling him for a couple of hours, then popped him back for a brief visit up to see

stephen_dedman and

agoodliedown. Gaming had been postponed due to everyone being knackered but I still wanted a break from the work-home-alone-rat care cycle. I hope Zach didn't mind. He had got himself back to the hammock when I arrived home two hours later. I took him out again and to bed with me, not that I got any sleep. He was quite peaceful. He started moving about a bit after a few hours, I got up and went to sit with him next to the cage. Luka came out, had a bit of a sniff and went about his business while I held Zach, who jerked a few times, took a couple more breaths and then just stopped. It didn't look painful.

I buried him this morning. Luka seems to be managing; he's out of the cage on the couch, doing his usual ratty thing. Rats accept death quite easily; they live close to it and although they certainly miss their cagemates when they go, they know what has happened on the basic level and they don't go looking for them once they see what has happened.

This was way too early, guy. I had all these plans to get you some new little cagemates and an easier cage for elderly rats but typical rodent, you did your own thing on your own schedule. I'll miss you, Zach and so will Luka.

R.I.P. ZACHARIAH 1 June 2007? - 2 October 2008

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