NicodemusRattus
Well-Known Member
Well, I've had my hands full the last 2 months with 2 litters of babies. Zuki's litter is now around 8 weeks, and Aurora's are about 7. I removed the males from both of the litters when they hit 5 weeks, and put them together into the "boys only" cage. All of the babies have been growing up fine and healthy. Then a few days ago I noticed that one of Zuki's baby boys has been acting strange. He's suddenly started losing weight, and is acting lethargic. He isn't eating a whole lot, although earlier I did catch him nibbling on a little bit of food. He's still drinking, since I also remember him sitting at the water bottle earlier. He has no discharge that I can see, he is a light colored rat and there don't seem to be any signs of poryphrin(spelled wrong probably). I picked him up, and his eyes don't appear runny or cloudy or any of that stuff. The only symptoms that anything's wrong is the weight loss and acting lethargic. All the rest of the babies and their mothers are fine, so I don't think it's anything contagious. Their mothers are sisters, so even though I recently introduced him to Aurora's boys, their mothers were cagemates so basically they're all familiar and it's unlikely any new bacteria or anything's been introduced. So I don't want to remove him from the cage unless it's absolutely necessary, but the rest of the babies are all acting normal. I don't know what could have brought it on, in mommy's cage he was on aspen and now he's on carefresh-type bedding, but it's less dusty than regular carefresh. The weather fluctuates a lot here, and it was cold for a few days and now it's back up near the 90s, there's an air conditioner running now but I've situated the ratty cages to the best of my ability, so that they're not getting blown on by the air conditioner. I'm not sure if he's sick or if he's just having trouble adjusting to something.