NicodemusRattus
Well-Known Member
Well as some of you may know, I've got a couple litters of ratty babies living with me right now lol. The older litter is almost 5 weeks, and the younger litter is about 3 1/2 weeks. The younger litter belongs to Aurora, who is living in a wire cage. The wire spacing is the smallest size that they make for rodents, so I didn't think that the babies would be able to squeeze through. When they were smaller, mommy kept them in the nestbox so they didn't have much interest in roaming anyway. Within the past week or so, after their eyes opened, they started exploring the cage and they seemed big enough that they couldn't fit through the bars. Then I found out that one of them had recently escaped... The way the cage is designed, there are a couple spots (near the top and bottom of the cage of cage) where the bar spacing looks a little wider than the rest, but I didn't think the spacing at the top was that much wider. I'm not sure why the heck someone would design a rodent cage like that anyway. So I covered up the wider space on the bottom with tape, where I thought she had escaped through. It took me a day and a half to catch her. That was last night... after returning her to her family, I woke up this morning and saw that the same baby had escaped again. Apparently she hadn't escaped through the part where I thought she did. Her siblings don't seem interested in escaping, or maybe they're too big because I'm pretty sure she's a runt. I'm having lots of trouble re-capturing her, she runs away from me every time I go after her. I set a humane no-kill mouse trap, but she doesn't seem interested in it. She is only 3 1/2 weeks old, she's eating some solid food but still needs to nurse with mommy. She already spent the past 2 days out of the cage, and I'm worried about her. How long can a rat this age go without their mother? I left some food and a water dish out but I don't know how long she can go without nursing. It's been a pain trying to catch her, she's blocked off in one room but there are a couple areas she keeps disappearing to when I try to grab her. I don't know how she keeps getting out, and I don't have any other cages big enough to relocate the whole family to. I don't think I'll be able to put her back in this cage until she's slightly bigger... my only options would be to put her in her Aunt's cage, who has a litter of her own. But her litter is a week older, and significantly bigger than her. I suppose I could try switching the family's cages? I can't believe this. I've had 4-5 week old babies in this same cage, and it was labelled specifically for rats, and said suitable for other rodents. I'm really upset about this whole thing, it took me long enough to catch her the first time and I'm not having very good luck this time. I'm afraid of her going too long without nursing...
