My old men

[ViciousCurse]

It's been a hot minute since I was here, but I'm getting to the point where my boys are becoming old and showing it. It's extremely bittersweet because these two old men were my second set of rats I ever took home, so they share a little special place in my heart, especially after the sudden passing of Grumpy.

Anyways, Lil Chu is now just past his second birthday (he turned two in July) and his health has taken a nosedive (I'll get into that later). One peculiar behavior he's developed suddenly is digging in his food bowl. Like, just shoveling out all of the food, dumping it on the floor, everything. It doesn't seem like he's looking for a piece of food, and I have plenty of hides and toys in their cage, so I'm just a little stumped on what might be causing this behavior.

Some ideas I have are that he's looking for soft squishy food. I have hard food and baby food set up for my rats, because Lil Chu and Ni are getting old and I want to make sure they're getting as much calories from their food as possible. While the younger boys do lick at the baby food, I've noticed that as soon as they've had their fill, they walk away. Usually there's a good amount of baby food left for Lil Chu and Ni, both of which are incredibly happy to get that all to themselves.
That's the only idea I have as to why Lil Chu is digging in the food bowl.

Some other background on Lil Chu: he very suddenly lost a lot of body weight. I've soaked his food (Oxbow), given him soy infant formula, and other types of baby food to help him try to build weight back up. However, I think his quality of life is just too far gone. I've had to clip his teeth and nails as needed, which is very frequently--at least once a week. He isn't gaining any weight, and his physical health keeps getting worse. I'm setting up an appointment with the vet tomorrow to have him euthanized. He's old and clipping his nails and teeth are just extremely stressful to him and I feel like he'll only get worse

I've resorted to giving him dog treats just because even when he's feeling cruddy, he'll snatch them from my fingers.

Ever since my move about a month and a half ago, his health has just slowly deteriorated. I think Grumpy's death also negatively affected him, as it seems the drop off has become a lot more steep since then.

Fingers crossed, but for now Ni Ni seems to be doing okay. He's got the other four rats to keep him company, but I think Lil Chu is his buddy.

 

[jorats]

Poor lil Chu. Have you had a good full vet exam done on him? Just passed 2 years old is not really that old. Does it look like he drinks and pee more? Might be a kidney issue.

 

[ViciousCurse]

Ever since the move, his health had slowly gotten worse. I actually didn't see a change in water drinking. Food consumption was different, but that was because his teeth had become misaligned and had overgrown so much. Like in the teeth trims post, he ended up passing away before the vet could help, from me waiting too long to get a hold of the vet.

He had lost a lot of weight that I couldn't explain, but he was still eating (albeit it slowly, hence why I upped watery, wet food amounts for him) and drinking. He stopped drinking from the bottle and used the bowls instead. He'd take his treats no hesitation, come to me for cuddles (which was odd in itself lol).

He struggled to keep up with grooming, so I wiped him down with an unscented baby wipe once a week. I made sure his tail was kept clean.

Also, I should add, I had listened to his lungs. Everything sounded fine. He sounded sneezy during and immediately after boarding, but that was just new home sneezes and it was only for a brief amount of time.

EDIT: I'd like to clarify since it seems my teeth trims and this posting don't seem to line up. I brought Lil Chu to the vet one night because he seemed to be just... fading. I don't know how to describe it, but you just know. I brought him into the vet to have him euthanized, pretty much before our other scehduled visit to try to get to the bottom of what was causing this illness. I really think anything we did may not have helped at that point and I opted to euthanize him for his poor quality of life. The vet agreed with me.

I also typed this when I woke up, so everything's a jumbled mess and I just came back to clarify. Had to edit once or twice to try to make everything less confusing and to add some other details.