Ben and Basil

Advertise with us
Fins us on Amazon
Shop with us on Ebay
The Rat Shack Forum

Help Support The Rat Shack Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
J

jennifervb

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2007
Messages
2,237
Location
California, U.S.A
Greetings!

I've had quite a rollercoaster ride with my little men this year. Ben and Jerry were two little brothers who blessed my home at the beginning of February. Unfortunately, Jerry became injured and then ill and had to be euthanized on June 18th. He was only 6 months old. I still hurt over my precious little gent but take comfort in the knowledge that he is living the good life on the other side of the rainbow bridge.

After Jerry's passing, I determined that Ben was not the happiest little camper so I contacted Small Angels Rescue and adopted Basil on 7/1/07. He was in quarantine for 2 weeks (which was a good thing since Ben was recovering from being neutered) and then the two were introduced.

Needless to say, my "resident rat" decided to be full of piss and vinegar and fluffed himself out as much as he could with every aggressive stance listed in Debbie Ducommun's Rat Health book!!! I had to rescue Basil from the bathtub more than once during the first 2 days of introduction!

Fortunately, Basil is a calm, cool and collected little rat man so he was able to "calm" Ben by the third day. They spent Sunday through Tuesday playing, romping and power-grooming each other in Ben's play area before I decided to let them "spend the day" together on Wednesday morning (7/18/2007).

I was on pins and needles during the day but when I got home, they were having a ball stealing Dingo chew bones from each other and carrying them to different levels of their "rat skyscraper". Since then, they have been inseparable. WHEW!!! What a relief!!!

Have any of you put together one of the rat skyscrapers from Martin's Cages? Dude!!! It took me 5 hours to get everything put together and set up!!! :shock: Fortunately, it is an awesome cage... and the two spoiled brats living in it seem to agree! :lol:

Jen
 
Welcome Jen, Ben and Basil!

I'm so sorry for your loss of Jerry.
I'm so glad in the end, Ben got a friend and they both get along now.
Hope you stick around and tell us more Ben and Basil stories!!
 
Hey Jennifer!
I also adopted two of my boys from Small Angels and I believe that we picked up our boys on the same day at the mall! I got the two 6 week old black and white hooded brothers and I remember Ben and Jerry because they were a little older right? I am so sorry to hear about Jerry, but you truly did everything humanly possible! Welcome to the forum you are going to love it here.

Sam
 
Aww sorry to hear about young Jerry...so sad to lose them like that. :(

Glad to hear the 2 other boys are now loving each other's company...does a ratmom's heart some good. :thumbup:

Now lets see? Rat Skyscraper is the R-695? Hmmm...built 2 of those, 1 R-660, 1 R-670, 5 R-680's, and a RUUD. Putting the RUUD together by myself almost killed me...hahahah.

Lucky boys, a whole R-695 for just 2 of them. :mrgreen:
 
Thanks Ratamataz,

I can tell you, I am counting my lucky stars that they like each other! My condo is only 560 sq. ft so it would not have been easy to keep them separate if they had not gotten along. :shock:
 
I'll keep you all updated with any new Ben and Basil antics. Right now their favorite pastime seems to be chewing on my bedsheets and peeing on my couch cover...

I'm sure this is normal for most rambunctious rodents...
 
they are precious little guys mamarat. Michelle, from Small Angels believed that Basil may have been intended as snake food. If that is true... he is amazingly affectionate.

I get free manicures and my face is cleaned on a regular basis by my little guy. Basil does not, however, try powergrooming me... I'm too big. :wink:
 
Hey!!! Did you adopt Jump and Bean? If so, they were adorable!!!

I can tell you, it really hurt to lose Jerry. The ironic thing was that, the day he died, he was scheduled to have an appointment to get his incisors checked again.

I was in such a good mood that day! I fully believed that this would be the turning point for my little trooper and that we would finally start getting him back up to par. I was absolutely devastated to find him comatose in his cage.

As a result of what happened to Jerry, I have become really anal about checking their incisors! The vet believes there must have been something else wrong that we were not able to diagnose. Something like cancer in a hard to see place. With all the high protein foods he was getting (assist feeding) he should have been blowing up like a little balloon. Instead he was losing weight drastically.

He went from 321 grams to 200 (at the time of death). I got to be with him when he was euthanized. The vet was wonderful. She tapped his little eyes in various places to make sure that he was "out" before giving him the injection.

It was extremely painful for me to have to watch my little man pass and even harder to take the body home for Ben to make closure with.

Thank God that your little guys are thriving! I hope your son is having a ball with the both of them! :D
 
Wow... you've put together practically everything!!! Awesome!!! Did you use the rings they provided? I can tell you... I had the HARDEST time with those things!!!!!

Rats are wonderful animals aren't they? I have Ben and Jerry's baby picture and a huge printout of Basil hanging up at work. Needless to say, I get all kinds of comments but that doesn't phase me.

Rats should be flaunted and if you are ashamed of your little fur forms then you shouldn't have them. 8)
 
thanks! It was painful to lose Jerry and I was really worried about Ben for a while.

My rats spend between 2 and 4 hours a day outside their cages but when Jerry died, I had Ben with me whenever I was home.

I wasn't sleeping well either. I would wake up every 2 hours to check on him since I know that their most active times are between midnight and 4am.

I didn't want my little face to suffer so I arranged for Basil as soon as I could! I knew that Ben would need some time to recover from his neuter so I figured that the two weeks of quarantine required for Basil would be the perfect time.

The funny thing is that Ben was overly aggressive when Basil was introduced. Basil, on the other hand, has not yet been neutered and is as docile and calm as it is possible to be! Basil will be getting neutered in early september. I want to make every effort to avoid any forms of cancer in my little guys. :)
 
Yes we have Jump and Bean which my son named Junior and Piggy. He actually isn't all that fond of them becuase they are scratchey. It's okay because I really got them for mama anyways!!!! We also added two additional boys when I got snookered by their sad snake food faces at Petsmart.

I am so sorry about Jerry. I followed his progress on the Small Angels board but I never posted. I am very glad that you found a new friend for Ben. My Junior is rather sickly. He had a bout with pneumonia that I didn't expect him to survive. He made it through but he's never been quite the same and I just know he's not going to be with me for as long as he should be.

We also have the Martin 695, which I didn't realize was so huge when I ordered it! I put it together with zip ties which I'm sure made it easier. I put it together backwards the first time and had to cut the whole thing apart and start again. grrrrrrr.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top