How should Rats Mourn?

My rat, Inknut had been slowly going downhill healthwise. She got an inflammatory infection, then pneumonia from aspirating the antibiotics, and since then it's only gotten worse. This past week she was teetering on a blade between life and death, and finally decided it was time to put her to sleep. She passed a few hours ago, and I decided to put her in the cage with her sister so she could mourn. Tumble spent a few minutes sniffing Inknut, and the box she's in, then walked away. I tried to bring her attention back to Inknut by taking her out of the box, but Tumble bit her nose and then her hand, attempting to pull her away as if she was food. I took Inknut out then, because I knew some rats do eat their passed friends, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't interrupting her mourning. She seems to be oblivious, eating, sniffing, running like always. Does she not understand that Inknut is gone? What should I do?

I am very sorry about your loss {{hugs}}

She may not understand, but she knew her sister was ill, she knows her sister is gone and she said goodbye.
Rats grieve in different ways …. as long as she has at least one other rattie friend to live with, she should be ok.
You can give her extra attention if she wants it and pamper her a bit.

Please see grieving rats in the Reference Thread https://www.ratshackforum.com/threads/reference-thread-read-only.35894/

BTW Welcome to the forum
There is a lot of good info in the reference thread

Welcome to the forum and I'm sorry for your loss Too bad you came to us through this way.

Rats can grieve in a variety of ways. If a rat has been ill for a while, I notice my rats seem to grieve (at least visibly) less because they understand it's the end for said rat. If the deceased rat passed away very suddenly, I notice more visible grief. Just like people, rats have different levels of attachment to one another. When my rat, Grumpy, passed away, I noticed the my two rescues (which were introduced and then moved into the cage only a few months before), while sad, were not as seemingly sad as the younger rats, the ones Grumpy had taken a liking to. I have pictures of Grumpy going out of his way to cuddle up against the babies and to groom them way more than his brothers, Ni Ni and Lil Chu.
Of course, all of this does not take into consideration that rats may not openly mourn as others do, similarly to people.

When bringing the body back for my rats to say goodbye, I'm often in tears. I've seen rats sniff each other's faces (their nose) and their eyes, as if looking for signs of life. I've had a couple of them nip the body, as if trying to wake them up. My rats will check out the body and then my more social rats will come up to me and sniff my face. Of course, this may be anthropomorphizing, but it makes me feel a little better.

Some rats have been known to "help" their elderly or sick cagemates. I've seen videos of rats dragging sick rats into hides with them, I've seen younger rats go out of their way to groom older rats who are incapable of grooming certain spots, I've seen younger rats move out of the way of older rats for food. The list goes on. Tumble may have been trying to bring Inknut into a hide as to help her.

Tumble may be just trying to "move on" so to speak. In the wild, they can't sit in their hole and mourn the loss of a loved once like humans can. Rats still have to forage for food, get water, make sure there are no nearby predators, and do their best to survive, despite being sad.

Ok. Thanks so much. I think I did the right thing then, because I decided to put Inknut back in the cage and then closely monitor, and tumebe sniffed her and walked on her a bit longer and then stopped. She's been less active in the past few days but I've spent a lot of time with her and given her lots of treats since I know they can lose weight when they're stressed. She's doing pretty well, I think.

Thank you so much for your help and comfort. It's so hard to lose a pet but I'm glad I'm doing the right thing.