Help! strange behaviour around mammary tumour!

[juicypear]

My pet rat silk has developed a mammary tumour and is in need of surgery as it is too close to her leg and is bothering her movement. She is about a year old and should have surgery by the end of this week. However i noticed some very strange behaviours around it , and i have had to separate her from her cagemate because of these. On friday she possibly over groomed her tumour and opened up a hole, which looked dangerous at the time but very quickly closed over. The next day she was looking healed, and had a pretty successful vets consultation when i noticed her laying in a postion with her tumour outwards and her cagemate attempting to eat it. In the past her cagemate has shown signs of being a rough groomer, but never like this. Silk however seemed quite willing to the process, which makes me wonder her discomfort. She is currently on painkillers and is eating and drinking suitably. Any advice?

 

[kaseyb]

my rat had a tumor like this, it turned out that he was overgrooming because the tumor was painful for him, and his cagemates were trying to clean it up after he had opened it. his turned out to be cancerous. this isnt necessarily the case with your rat, and my rat lived to be 3 after having his cancerous tumor removed as well, so dont get too scared yet. i would just keep them separate for the next few days, and maybe once the tumor is removed have a biopsy done on it. personally i took my rat out of his cage and kept him in a smaller one right next to the main cage until he recovered, so his friends could still see him and interact with him. i also gave him extra attention since he was on his own. if you let them have time together, make sure to watch them very carefully, and pull them apart right away if the other one starts grooming anywhere on the side of the body the tumor is on just to be careful because it can escalate pretty quickly.