Zorro has had his post-op checkup, and is bright as a button. He’s living with his brother Pirate in the bottom layer of their cage. He’s still as randy as ever, but Pirate is submissive enough to let Zorro bully him right now. The vet says it could be up to six weeks before the castration changes his behaviour, but Pirate might actually find out what it’s like to be the boss then.
I had a lovely experience yesterday - an intimate moment or three with Fox. Fox is my hyper little ratty boy, who doesn’t usually sit still enough for a cuddle, although he is getting better now he’s hit six months old.
The ratty boys were hot, and lying flat out around the cage. Fox was at the edge of a shelf with two other boys beside him. This was fine until ratty number four came to join the line-up. Do you remember the nursery song of Ten in the Bed? Well, I could see that something similar was about to happen, so I put my hand beside the shelf. Fox ended up leaning on my hand being stroked, with what looked very like a ratty smile on his face.
Then ratty number five joined the group. The technique is to plop yourself onto two other ratties, and then to insinuate yourself into the row by wriggling down into the gap you create between them. This shoved Fox right off the shelf into my hand, still asleep and totally relaxed. I’m holding a relaxed Foxy! I stood there stroking him with my thumb until my arm was tired, then stood there even longer holding that arm up with the other hand.
Then... number six wanted to join in. He jumped from the shelf above to land on my hand. Unfortunately it was already full of Fox, who almost jumped out of his furry little skin!
End of cuddle.
I’ve just noticed that Quicksilver has a bump coming up under one of his bites. He’s already on antibiotics, so I’ll keep that going and take him back to the vets on Monday.
In honour of Pogo and Gonzo’s first birthday next Friday, and Quicksilver’s first birthday next Saturday, I (with the help of the kids) am planning a grand ratty tea party.
We’ve already planned on using a box spread with a cloth to make a table. I’m sure that birthday cake (bun) will be on the menu, possibly a yogurt dish. Porridge always goes down well, although it’s not a usual party dish. Probably some tiny pasta shells as snacks. Apple slices for the more health conscious guests.
Games will consist of:
Prezzies will be wrapped in nice, rustly tissue paper.
The official photographer will be present to record the event.
(Please keep this quiet, as we would like to surprise the birthday boys).
Well, Quicksilver now has an abscess on one of the bites. The vet managed to open it up, and squeezed out a fair amount of gunk, but she’s fairly sure it will fill up again. He’s had a jab of Baytril, and is carrying on with his oral Baytril until Friday, when they will have another look at him and remove the abscess if necessary. To be honest, it looks as if it has filled up again already.
I’m a little concerned about Zorro as he has lost some weight
following the fight and castration, (no, not just the weight the vet
removed 
) but he seems bright as ever in himself, and seems
to be eating OK. Presumably it was just the stress. He was
already the smallest ratty and now looks tiny compared to his
brother, who is continuing to grow very fast and is looking as
if he’ll end up the biggest rat in the group.
It’s dawned on me that part of the reason Zorro looks so small is that Pirate is enormous! We weighed them all today, and Pirate is bigger than some of the one year olds.
They’re only four and a half months old, and Pirate is well over 500 grams already. Zorro is around the same weight as Quicksilver at seven months. He’s also not lost any more weight in the past couple of days, so it looks like I was being an anxious mum again.
I was giving Jasper and Fox a nice scritch on the neck this evening, and thought they were both lost in rapture, but I was obviously (in Jasper’s opinion) paying too much attention to Fox. Jasper reached over and took my Fox scritching finger gently in his teeth, and pulled it over to himself so I couldn’t fuss Fox any more.
Well, they boys had a great party. We did everything except the painting, because I put it off while we had the food out, then I got distracted. There’s a load of pictures here.
Quicksilver and Zorro got on so well during the party that I’ve taken the division out of the cage, and they have all been living together since lunchtime without any incidents. It remains to be seen whether Zorro will be OK in there as his hormone levels drop further.
We left them all on the table while I did a full scale clean out of the cage, washed all of their toys and furniture, took out the dividing section, and replaced everything except the ferret boat. I didn’t want to leave that in because if they start to fight in there you can’t get at them. Once I was finished they all went home to sleep off the excitement.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve only had the ratties for 10 months now. They have taken over the house, our hearts, and our shoulders.
I made a discovery today. Because I didn’t want the litter trays to smell of either set of ratties at all, I put a drop of vanilla essence on the litter in each tray. The boys then felt that they had to drown out the scent, so they have been working hard to cover it. I wonder whether the same trick would help to train ratties to use their trays?
We went back to the vet with Quicksilver, but it was obvious that his abscess was healing OK. He has been so good all this week, letting us take off the scab and clear it out, and taking his antibiotics without any fuss. No operations for Quicksilver.
Quicksilver seems to be having a hard time of it lately. First he had all the hassle with Zorro not taking his warnings, then there was the fight and his bite marks, then just as they seemed to be healing one turned into an abscess. He’s been on antibiotics for such a long time. Now he has the young upstart back in his cage. Quicksilver is looking under the weather and showing porphyrin staining on his eyes and nose.
Just to add to Quicksilver’s troubles, Pogo seems to have decided that it’s a good time to make a challenge for leadership. He’s flipped Quicky a couple of times today, accompanied by much squeaking. Quicksilver has never been a large rat, and is currently one of the smallest in the cage, but he’s lead by virtue of his speed and dedication.
Is this the end of an era?
Quicky and Zorro almost had a clash this evening, over a tennis ball of all things. Quicksilver was busy chewing a hole in the ball, and Zorro kept trying to stick his nose in. I solved the disagreement by removing the ball.
Quicksilver seems to be getting back to his normal self. He's got a porphyrin stained eye, but he's looking happier than he was a few days ago, and he's told Pogo where to get off.
My littlest boy seems fine. I'm not sure whether he's putting the weight back on, because I've lost the scales. Oh for a tidy house! The kids are calling him a fairy rat because he's such a lightweight. I think we've all got used to our hefty bucks.
He seemed to get spooked this evening. My son came in and put Zorro on me, and he ran straight into my t-shirt. I thought he'd gone to sleep in there, but when I looked he was wide eyed and tense. I gave him a couple of opportunities to go back into the cage, but he stayed put. When I eventually had to move him after an hour or so, he resisted being removed, and then shot into the cage as if a cat were after him. He spent the rest of the evening hiding in the wheel, not even venturing out for food time. I was getting very worried about him, but he seemed to have forgotten whatever it was by the next morning.
We accidentally bought a hamster today. I had told my eldest daughter that she could have a hamster when we got back from our holiday, but she was worried that the one she had set her heart on would be gone by the time we came home. We set off yesterday to ask the shop if we could pay for her and collect her in two weeks, but on the way it occurred to me that it might be better to take her home, because she would get more interaction and attention with our petsitter than she would in the pet shop.
So we now have a beautiful blonde 7 week old hamster girlie. Welcome to Drucilla.
I took Gonzo to the vet today because he's looking very off colour. He has a stained nose, and he's not cleaning himself properly. It wasn't till I was sitting there waiting that I discovered just how many bite marks he has on him! The vet couldn't find anything obvious wrong with him, but gave me some iodine wash for his bites.
We've had a good look at all the boys now, and several of them have fresh bite marks. I'm not sure who it is, but suspect it might be Pirate.
It's Zorro, the little horror! Gonzo was walking in the door of the cage, and Zorro went for him. Gonzo now has yet another bite mark, and Zorro is in solitary in the travel box again. Sigh!
This is the latest instalment of the Tales of Zorro, the little delinquent who was castrated a couple of weeks ago to try to calm him down, and who I was congratulating myself on reintegrating into the big cage again last Friday.
The chapter starts with Gonzo, a dozy blue lump of a ratty who has been looking under the weather for the past few days. His face was looking very brown from all of the porphyrin groomed across it, and he just seemed out of sorts, so I decided to pop him up to the vets just to get him checked out.
It wasn't until I was sitting in the waiting room at the vets, giving him a fuss, that I noticed that he was covered in small scabs. Mites? No, because each injury was paired with another nearby. Someone had been biting him all around the neck and down his sides. The vet gave him an examination, and couldn't find anything else wrong with him, but gave me some iodine wash to clean him up with.
On arrival home, I checked out the other ratties. Quicksilver had some new bites, so did Jasper. So, assuming that there was only one culprit, that narrowed it down to Pogo, Fox, Pirate, Zorro or Merlin.
Then he struck. I can only assume that Gonzo smelt of iodine, although it was three or four hours since he had been treated. As Gonzo went to step into the cage, Zorro went for him. He took a bite of Gonzo's side, who was so surprised that he fell off the shelf onto the bag of cage litter underneath.
Zorro was removed from the cage by my eldest daughter, because the rest of us took one look at his bog-brushed state and decided that it wasn't a good idea to touch him. He let her pick him up, cuddled for a while, then bit her on the knuckle as she put him into his travel cage.
So, Zorro is now back in a separate part of the cage, with his brother Pirate, who he hasn't been biting as far as we can tell.
The boys have been on holiday with my brother and sister-in-law while we took a trip down to Devon. They'll be back home with us tomorrow, so I hope they've all behaved themselves.
Annette
Last modified: Friday, 04-Mar-2005 23:56:42 GMT
