Lonely girl

[RatDad2017]

Hello everyone!

It’s been an interesting year for my rats. From having to euthanize one of my rats, to one having a seizure, and then two dying of old age (at least they went quick and didn’t have a drawn out death), and now I have one female left.

Oddly enough, this female I have left is the first rat I got (I used to have rats growing up, but I started a new clan of my own a few years ago). I play with her every day, take her out of the cage, and I completely spoil her. My question is, what can I do to prevent her from getting lonely? Is playing with her every day enough? I would LOVE to adopt some older females for her to have as roommates, but I sadly have discovered (through lots of allergy testing), that the horrible allergies I’ve been having for about two years is due to my rats. So, I don’t want to adopt her out, and I can’t adopt another female, so I’m just not sure what to do.

I had to make the difficult decision of having no more rats after my last girl passes. She’s so sweet, fun, and friendly... I just want her to be happy! Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[SQ]

Assuming she is elderly, is it possible to foster a couple of rats from a rescue that could befriend her?

 

[rmn34]

Just a thought- but have you tried filtering the air in the room, or perhaps getting a prescription allergy medication? Depending on the type of allergy, a good carbon filter can completely neutralize all smells, combined with a HEPA prefilter, can remove most of the allergy causing particles from the air. I set one of these up, ironically, to prevent my rats from getting respiratory infections, but it would no doubt work both ways if I were allergic.

 

[Rattdad]

I think a lot of owners struggle with this very issue. I got the rat bug from my daughter, and I've told myself that after 5 years (I'm on year 3 now) I'll probably take a break, as it can be pretty time consuming (as much as I love my little beasts). The rat foster idea is a good one. Another one I thought of is, I now get all of my rats from a rat rescue... if I ever end up with only one, I'm going to look into making a decent donation to the rescue and see about finding a special home for the older rat. I'm not wealthy, but it would be worth something to my peace of mind if I could make sure that my pet had companionship... But, the big question is, maybe your female would be happier with you? It sound as if you're giving her a nice life.

When I had my first group (three sisters), one passed away and me and my daughter had two... and then one suddenly passed away, leaving only one. I felt SO bad for her, I immediately (ten days later) adopted two boys. I had read all the stuff about not having only one rat. But, the funny thing was, my girl was INCENSED that I would dare to expect her to now share a cage with two bumbling ex-lab rats. She seemed absolutely miserable and was constantly hissing at the boys, who seemed as if they didn't understand what was going on. Within a couple of weeks, she learned to love and accept them, but it's funny how you can convince yourself that your rat "needs companionship" and then you get them a companion and they seem to hate it... for a time.