Not a lot to report, really. One of my boys may be wheezy - may have to withdraw them from the show on Saturday. I'm listening hard to work out whether it was a one-off thing. Better safe, though.
We took a video of the hamsters yesterday. One of them was intent on jumping off the table. I'm not sure if we shouldn't have stopped the game, but hammy seemed to be enjoying the game.
It was a glorious morning this morning, while I waited in for a new mattress to arrive. Then I got drenched collecting my catalogues this afternoon.
I seem to have started a web ring. I'm still not quite sure why, just one of those moments I seem prone to. Haven't quite figured out how to drive the thing yet either. The page will be here http://www.rattycorner.com/links/linkswebrings.shtml when I work it all out.
I got some funny video of the foster girls fighting on the table this evening. I'll try to get it posted tomorrow. They are horrible to one another, while still managing to be cute. They're off to their new home on Saturday. I'm going to miss the little demons.
Here it is, my latest daft idea - The Ratty Ring! We'll have to see if I get enough people signed up to actually make it worthwhile. It would be fun to get a big circle going.
I took Doppler to the vet today. He's looking quite ropey, and I think it was him I may have heard wheezing the other day. The vet thinks he may have a heart condition, but she's not sure that she could get a good xray without anaesthetic, and his lungs aren't up to that. He's having some antibiotics in the hope that it's an infection. If they don't work it points towards heart problems.
She also thinks he may have mites. I'm not sure about that, no-one has any scabs. I think it might just be Doppler's skin flaking because he's dehydrated. But I've pulled the boys out of the show on Saturday just in case.
I'm just going to post the videos of the girlies. They were absolutely mad last night. I'm going to miss them!
I have a dilemma. I've taken the boys out of the show, but the girls are supposed to be passed on there. I could go into quarantine, but that seems paranoid on the information I have. Here's my reasoning:
1. The only rats that haven't been here for a month or more are the black girls. They had not been in contact with any other rats, other than their mother. So there should be nowhere we could have picked up an infection.
2. Doppler has been off colour since Monday evening. None of the other rats are showing any signs of illness.
3. The vet suspects that Doppler has heart problems rather than an infection.
4. The black girls are pictures of health.
I've asked the girls' new mum and the courier from the show if they are still happy to take them, but haven't had any reply yet. I'm tending towards going ahead with the exchange. I just hope it's the right decision. I would hate to be responsible for spreading anything. Worry worry worry.
Daft, isn't it? As soon as lots starts happening I don't have time to blog.
We went off to the MRC Cup Show yesterday. Had a fun day. The photos are here. There were no shoulder rats allowed, but we had the agility competition with foam rats. Very silly but fun all the same. I took the Ratty Corner stand and made enough money to cover our expenses for the day, which is all it needs, really.
It was hard letting the little girls go. I'm really going to miss the little misses. Might be slightly less hectic though.
The best thing to happen is that I've been offered another Shakhouse cage to add onto mine. The boys will have more room then - they are a little crowded and it would have got worse as they get bigger.
Doppler doesn't look any better. It's really hard trying to get medicine into him when he doesn't want to eat at all. The only thing he really fancies is mashed banana, but he eats the tiniest piece and I'm left with the rest of the banana!
I've been busy. I was annoyed by Ringsurf showing pest control ads on my ratty webring, so I installed some software on my server and now I can host my own webring with no ads at all! I've emailed all my previous members to ask them to come with me. Have to see if it works.
The new webring is at http://www.rattycorner.com/ringlink.shtml.
I took Doppler back to the vet for his second jab. He did actually seem a little better this morning. He still looks very skinny though. Trouble is, if it is an infection I made the wrong call in taking the girls to the show on Saturday. Very worrying.
Really soggy day today. Got soaked to the skin this morning, but I'd still rather be delivering catalogues than go back into an office.
Doppler seems to be getting better, he's been eating a little more. We've got a vet appt tomorrow so I'll find out if he's put any weight back on. He looks much skinnier than all his brothers. We were at the stage where the vet was talking post mortems to see what was going on, so he's done really well to come back. A couple of the other boys have porphyrin round their eyes; I'm wondering if they've caught something off him.
The new webring is up and running. Five of the seven people from my first attempt have moved across with me. I haven't heard from the other two.
So what's been happening?
Well, the BIG news is that Shakhouse have sent me a replacement floor for the broken one I got in May. I can't quite believe that I finally got through to them. This means that when I pick up the single storey Shak cage from my friend a week on Saturday I'll be able to make a fantastic extension to the rat cage. They sent the floor with no covering letter or anything, really odd customer service, but I'm just glad to have finally got it.
Ratwise, Doppler is getting better every day. Tesla was getting a bit rattly, Theo wasn't sounding good and Toby looked rough, so with the vet's permission I've put everyone on antibiotics for 10 days to try and blast whatever they're passing round.
I was very worried that I'd made the wrong call in passing the little girls on at the show, thinking that Doppler had heart problems rather than an infection, but it seems that they're still fine. Huge sigh of relief. It's so hard to get the right balance between paranoia and safeguarding the ratties and I did what seemed right at the time, but now it seems it was wrong and it's only luck that nothing bad came of it.
My catalogue round isn't doing as well as it should. A lot of the stuff seems to be out of stock. I'm hoping that will get better now we've been taken over. It's really annoying to have paid out for the catalogues and then find that when people order from them I can't get the goods, especially when they're ordering expensive Christmas goods.
Well the ratkids seem fine. I've been playing with setting up my webring system for the past few days. Check it out at http://www.petscorner.org - I installed the software to use for myself, but I've decided to open it up for others to run their rings too. No takers so far, but that's not a problem, it doesn't really matter if noone else uses it.
I've moved Dali and his wives into the Freddy cage. The aviary was smelling of urine no matter what I did, and once I took it apart it became obvious that there were places that ordinary cleaning out just didn't reach. The rats don't seem bothered by the change at all now that the new cage is in the same place as the old one.
Not long until I get the new bits for the Shak cage. I've got the coffee table set up ready for the new bits, and the tubing ready to fix the cages together. It's going to be fantastic. Just in time too, the boys are starting to get stroppy with one another.
Dali and the girls seem to have settled well into their new apartment. The adding of the soft igloo has gone down particularly well - they 've discovered the art of foam-mining. A pity really, because the weather is scheduled to get colder and they're busy removing all the insulation from their house.
I don't know how much longer I'll have any of them. Dali is breathing very hard, though not wheezing. Everything is an effort for him; he has to sit and rest after climbing up to the top shelf. Blaize has her growing tumour, and I noticed this evening that Vixen has another tumour too, well disguised with her ample figure. Looks like a vet run is in order. Sigh.
I found this little fellow looking lost out in the back garden the other day, and thought he might get along well with my ratties. So I'd like you to please meet my new pet brick!
He was very grubby, so I gave him a good bath and dried him off well in the oven. He doesn't seem very responsive, but I think that's just a brick thing. I have him in the cage with my boys already and they seem to be getting along famously. I hope I shouldn't have quarantined?
I'm hoping he can train the ratty boys not to make so many puncture holes in the back of my head. I'm sure people must think I have nits, I'm scratching so much, but it's really the ratlets climbing onto my head. I can't use my anti-itching cream in my hair!
Anyway, I just wanted to let you meet my latest addition. I'm thinking of naming him after my favourite TV doctor.
His world, at least. Darwin is the biggest young rat I've had, reaching 500 grams at 13 weeks old. He's a good weight for an ADULT rat, and he has several months of growing to do yet.
My boys' cage has thirteen rats in, five adults and eight boys. A slight population explosion caused by me not quite getting the fostering idea right, and keeping all six boys I took in to rehome. So far all has been peaceful, but I've been dreading the youngsters reaching the 'teenage' stage, where all the hormones kick in.
It seems that Darwin is an early developer. He's pushed William, an older buck, off their balcony twice in the past two days. William isn't resisting - he's doing his very best to submit, but Darwin is being a real thug and taking no notice at all. He's puffed up like a big bog-brush, parading round the cage and making a nuisance of himself. I caught poor William as he fell this morning, and he snuggled into my neck and sat there for a good 20 minutes before he let me put him back in the cage.
William is not the alpha male. I think Theo has that position. In fact, of the five older boys I think William is fourth in the hierarchy. That means that Darwin has another three rats to defeat before he proves himself as a studly buck and gains the top of the pile, which I'm sure is where he means to be.
This morning I drove 20 miles each way to pick up some chopped cardboard cage litter. The ratkids will be pleased with me. The last bag ran out last weekend and they've been very puzzled by my strange behaviour in putting soft bedding in their litter trays. They chucked it all out and used the empty trays to poo in. Stupid human!
Darwin has toned down his attempt to take over the World. I haven't seen him throwing anyone around today. Yet. I did find a pork rib in the cage which had been gnawed to a fine point, so maybe he still has plans.
When I put the boys home last night I was convinced that there were three ratties hiding in the tunnel on the table. I finally managed to extract Archie and Hubble, and then it was empty. Hmm. I looked in the cage and couldn't work out who would be missing, so I put it down to the fact I'd had a couple of glasses and wasn't counting properly.
I must have continued churning it over during the night, because I woke this morning in the certain knowledge that Max was missing. He's not in the cage. No sign of him anywhere. The dining room door was open all night, so he could be anywhere in the house. Just what I don't need - there's a lot to get done today. Yeah, right. So that's why I'm sitting here eating breakfast and blogging.
The new cage extension has been completed. We now have even less front room, but the rats are very happy and their cage is now big enough for the 13 rats living in it. We've already discovered a problem with it - it's a really tight squeeze for rats to pass each other in the connecting tunnel. Sigh. Even if we added a second tunnel, it's a certainty that they'd all want to use the same one.
Archie is looking ill this evening. Not wheezing or anything, just looking unhappy and not eating. I thought we'd got past the infections. :(
I took Archie up to the vet yesterday morning because he wasn't eating at all. Even baby food off my finger! She gave him a jab of Marbocyl, then realised that she'd got the dose wrong, so he had 10x the dose he should have had. I had a rootle on the Internet and worked out that the dose was still perfectly safe, just as she'd said, but expected him to be feeling even more ill because of it. Not so. He's taken food from my finger, pottered around the cage a little, and is even eating cucumber this morning along with everyone else. The infection has obviously been well and truly blasted! I've got three more syringes with the correct dose for him, but I don't need to start those until tomorrow to give time for the overdose to leave his system.
The boys cage is much calmer now there's more space. I don't know if they're more chilled, or if it's just easier to stay out of each other's way with the extra room.
I have the new section set up as a play area, no hammocks, just boxes, branches, paper bags and tunnels. The wheel is in there too, much better because it used to make the whole cage sway but the new section is more stable, standing on a coffee table instead of on wheels. I'm really, really pleased with this.
Archie is so much better it's amazing. If too much antibiotic works this well, why do we use the smaller doses?
Annette
Last modified: Sunday, 04-Nov-2007 22:37:17 GMT
