Cockroaches

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Amaginon

Active Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
36
Location
Brisbane
Hello
Just a quick question. It is still summer here in Brisbane, and I get a decent amount of big cockroaches that fly in through the windows. Now my younger rat (King Jack) occasionally kills them (mainly if he has opportunity) and even more occasionally even seems to nibble on them. Now is this something particularly bad for him that I should be discouraging? and if so how would you even discourage it?

I think it is a bit yucky and my older rat (Phoenix) has never paid any attention to them. And both do not seem to pay attention to the Geckos at all, even though the Geckos can be quite brazen, though i guess they are very fast and can run up walls, so maybe King Jack just does not bother trying for them. (The Geckos are small lizard-types. a bit like skinks who feed on small flying insects, lots of them all over my suburb, and they climb in and out of my house at will and they do a fantastic job of keeping down mosquitos during the summer. They also make a loud weird mating call). Anyway, just wondering if my rat nibbling on cockroaches every now and then is something to be concerned about.

A second question, my older rat, Phoenix, who is overweight, has taken to lying down as he is eating. He is quite happy to just lie down and and graze his food (particularly if it is sunflower seeds - his favourite). I have had elderly rats before and I do no really remember seeing this behaviour before. If he gets a bigger piece of food like a piece of corn cobb or a macadamia, or even a piece of chocolate or chicken, he will run off to hide and eat it in his little storehouse, but if it is something small, like frozen peas, oats or seeds, he just lies down (not resting on back legs, completely lying on stomach) and just grazes.
 
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I have a 3.5 year old rat who does this when I feed him any high protein food. I have seen 2 dogs do this as well, a Shih-tzu and another mop dog.. I took him to the vet 6 months ago and it turned out it as related to kidney, so I put him on a low protein, low-potassium,. low-phosphorus diet, and the behavior stopped...to some extent. The vet and I call it a "renal episode." Dialysis helped as well. We now get regular urine tests Just my experience!
 
Cockroaches are nasty, parasite and disease-carrying pests. I would make a slip cover out of some hardware cloth if possible.
 
I have a 3.5 year old rat who does this when I feed him any high protein food. I have seen 2 dogs do this as well, a Shih-tzu and another mop dog.. I took him to the vet 6 months ago and it turned out it as related to kidney, so I put him on a low protein, low-potassium,. low-phosphorus diet, and the behavior stopped...to some extent. The vet and I call it a "renal episode." Dialysis helped as well. We now get regular urine tests Just my experience!

Hmm, something to be concerned about then. He does not really show any other issues, and since it has stopped being so hot the last couple of days he has been a lot more active (during the hot days he either sleeps under the couch or cuddles up to a frozen bottle of water). I guess I will have to get over my grudge with my vet though to be safe.

I am guessing the slip cover is supposed to be for the cage. I leave the cage open, and my two boys free range my apartment. The cage holds their water and food, and sometimes Phoenix sleeps on the top shelf of the cage, but mainly they sleep in a draw on the desk under the cage. They come when they are called though or if they want to try what I am eating. It is only a small 4 room apartment though, so it is not like they can get lost,
 
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