Oracle needs help, Petey needs a home, and i need a sanity check

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YokaiRatRAR

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but you guys can only help me with two of those.

I noticed my pet rat Oracle has a lump on the side of her head, right about the jaw. And I have a cute little intact male named Petey who I need to rehome. Both will have seperate forum topics. There's nothing wrong with Petey, and obviously something's wrong with oracle or I wouldn't be talking to you about her.

Between them both, trying to figure out why I'm so upset and snatched her littermate away is the outspoken greedy little glutton named Glados (pronounced Gladys). As you can tell, they all have names that are computery or sci fi-ey in some form. I decided when i got Oracle and Glados that if i got a critter from a pet store or an adopted critter didn't otherwise have a name a sci fi name would be picked at random from a game or show I'm currently or was in the past obsessed with. (My guinea pig is named after the engineer in star trek voyager to boot! Only Smokey, my adopted cat, doesn't have a sci fi name out of my critters because Smokey is the only thing he's ever answered too not counting my cutsie nicknames for him.)

Oracle is named after Batwoman's hacking handle. Petey is named after Spiderman (because he was literally climbing the cieling of his cage at the petshop trying to escape his sibs, long story and will be in his post), and Glados is named after the tyrannical and neurotic female AI in Portal and lives up to her name by being extremely pushy.

I have aspergers syndrome, depression, and anxiety and first got rats because I heard about a little boy on the spectrum like I was who used rats as therepy animals. I knew that small animals were generally inexpensive to take care of. Unfortunately, all the research I did was on wild rats! :scolding: my mistake. oooooops.

Still, I fell in love with my two tailed homegirls. Wouldn't trade them for the world. They get chicken, and cheese, and berries, and flowers, and nuts, and when I eat an apple they always get a piece. They love peanut butter, licking it off the cage bars or carefully whittled maple sticks. However, they can't have egg. I've tried. Every time I feed them egg they fight over it. Glados always wants the entire egg and won't let oracle have any. Oracle gets mad because egg is soft and I suspect she's had something wrong with her jaw since I got her. Its also nutrient rich and an easy to access form of protien (rather than saaaay, roasted peanuts or brazil nuts, which have to be 'opened' to get the 'prize' inside. By the way, they go nuts over pecans and brazil nuts are wonderful chew toys that take days to open up and become as much a toy as a food source.)

But Oracle... she has a thing for berries. She goes wild over raspberries. She goes wild over orange slices. She goes wild over roses. No, really. I once watched her rip apart a miniature rose from the florist and eat it.

But my favorite memory of them came when I bought a package of durian flavored candies from the asian market only to find out they tasted terrible. I let the rats run around on their cage shelf for awhile and abandoned the candies in a canning jar three feet away on the same shelf.

I get up to check on the girls, only to find Glados with her rear legs and tail sticking out of the jar, which was still upright. As I watched, Glados snatched the stinky durian candy in her teeth, feet and tail waving in the air, and ever so carefully backed out of the jar. Then she ran back to her cage. I start poking around in their bedding, and find candies they'd ripped the wrappers off of with tiny little rat bites taken out of them. Needless to say, the jar of durian candies quickly disappeared across the room where neither rat could find it. :pPPPPPP silly Glados. Candy isn't for rats!

Then there's the time I was drinking coffee with Oracle on my shoulder, I put my mug down, she scurries over and shoves her nose in, and I think... she couldn't possibly... I lean in to take a closer look. V.V;;;; shoulda known, her little jaw was motoring up and down licking up the coffee.

I firmly scooped her up and removed Oracle to the cage. eeeewww, rat cooties *.* but so cute. Sorry sweetie, I don't share coffee, not with a rat, not with a cat, not in a box, not with a fox. I do not share it here or there. I do not share it anywhere.

The girls live in a birdcage now, and they have a wheel and a ball between them. I had to curtail their adventures or they would have torn anything they could reach to pieces. There is a photo of Oracle hiding in a bookshelf floating around my internet accounts somewhere, crouched on top of a wicca guide by silver ravenwolf and a couple of books of mythology.

The end of their free roaming adventures came when I caught them sampling a piece of my pothos plant, something I KNOW for a fact is toxic to pets. Although roses didn't hurt them and they seemed adept at avoiding the thorns, I knew for a fact that this would. They took maybe two bites, one apiece, but I caught Oracle trying to sheer off a leaf for nesting material.

Rats in the wild have an instinct to test new food sources for toxicity. They have a scout rat take a tiny nibble, nowhere near enough to kill and then wait to see if the scout rat gets sick. If he does, they take a deep whiff of his or her breath, which allows them to identify the toxin by scent later on. This sampling behavior can lead them right to peanut butter to lick, candy to steal or roses to rip without ever having seen one or can result in the silly little dears poisoning themselves by mistake.

That birdcage seems to be the only logical choice for any rat now that they've shown how much they love it. A simple wooden dowel from the hardware store makes a very good perch and the both of them sit on it and watch me get ready for bed. Not even the vacume cleaner scares them.

Glados occasionally shows her wild side. Once when I forgot to feed her, she chewed open a plastic tupperware container of organic wheat berries, a treat she loves and I love because it has the wheat protein or gluten, the fiber from the germ, the guerantee of no pesticides that comes with organics, and they're cheap, about a dollar a pound. Plus I can grow them into grass, which has my girls doing this... :ratwave:

Glados has also reached through the cage bars and ripped off the top to her food container and ripped, yanked and wrecked the fly trap set to capture the fat, drunken summer flies that spin around apartments here in the berkshires every year. Store bought toys do not satiate her curiousity, only a good hard run in her ball or on the wheel. However, mother nature seems to make more entertaining things for rats than I could ever buy.

using maple wood, willow wood, strips of leather, pinecones and wooden dowels, as well as brown paper coffee bags emptied of their contents but still smelling of coffee beans tend to make for grand fun. The girls are more than willing to clean my cat's empty wetfood cans and never seem to get hurt on them. They'll rip tuna fish pouches to smithereens to get at the delicious juices and fishy bits inside. Glados goes gaga for the smell of eucalyptus oil, even going so far as to chew on the mouths of aromatherepy oil bottles in pursuit of that STRONG TREELIKE SMELL... *rat impression* "ooooh, smells so good, where's the tree, I wanna rip a hole in the tree where's the tree that smell is coming from? Can I rip it to pieces oh can I ma can I?"

In fact ripping things, like newspaper, seem to be Glados' favorite form of "play." Along with bags, anything either rat can pull into the cage from her surroundings can become a toy, empty jars that smell especially strongly, flowers (violets, dandylions, clovers and roses are their favorites) long wonderfully snuffly braids of grass, my ponytail, my glasses, the spoon or stick peanut butter is served to them on... unpopped popcorn kernals that still have bits of coconut oil and sea salt on them.

Yes, I have two little thieves. I love them dearly and check their cage for unmentionable or forbidden loot regularly.
 
Oh boy. Sounds like your rats are not on a proper pet rat diet. I highly suggest you find Oxbow Essentials for rats. It's a commercially formulated block for rats. It contains all their nutrients required. But more importantly, it has low protein. Rats require very little protein for optimum health. Eggs are in fact not packed with nutrients. They are actually not good for anyone, full of cholesterol and saturated fats.
Rats require their energy source to come from carbs. Give them plenty of veggies and grains, seeds and nuts but mostly grains and greens.
You write beautifully and make it a fun adventure for the reader. You need to tweak your rat care a little, save up some money for vet visits and continue your great love affair with your sweeties.
I hope you read up on our many informative posts on rat diet. That will help you get an idea what they really need.
We have many people here with neuro issues, we seem to gravitate to rats. :) My son has Tourette syndrome and a slew of other labels... he took to pets quite easily as well.
 
besides the rats i have a guinea pig and a cat, took some tweaking to find the right combo of animals. I really wanna rehome petey the spider rat and look into getting a second female guinea pig now that i have the proper sized cage for dah piggeh. Eventually the old guinea pig cage, being large and low, will be pressed into service as a rest cage, complete with grass, for the girls to swap places with the pig in.

They don't get processed food unless they steal it, and they /do/ steal things you leave near their cage. They also don't get egg anymore because they fought over it. They've stolen incense, papers, popcorn and a number of other things. The only thing they haven't stolen that was near their cage was my christmas cactus, simply because I suspect they don't want to mess with the prickers. They do get sunseed and kaytee brand rat foods. Mum just came in with egg white to offer oracle (she's nursing a jaw abscess and mum thought it would be nice and soft and easy on her) and walked away clucking when i showed her your post. Grumbling about everyone having a different opinion on eggs' nutritional value and how's she supposed to eat crunchy food if she's nursing an abscess blah blah blah.

as for whether or not rats eat protien, rats eat everything. I could argue that their history as scavengers makes rat blocks unnatural to feed them, wild rats dive for minnows, scavenge insects and carrion, and eat crops (grains have protien, what do you think the gluten is?).

Anywho, i was trying to capture the wild they can't visit as domestic rats. Thats why they got so many goodies. But i have packages of wheat and rye berries, all organic, that they can eat. Sunflower seed heads should be coming in soon as a treat. And i have wheat heads of my own coming up in the garden ATM. Big, plump, and green. the girls go <3333333 every time i bring them fresh picked wheat. Petey and Glados really love mum's kale from her boyfriend's garden. Drying out red clover for the winter too.
 
I agree with Joanne, the lower the protein the better for our well-fed domestics LOL

For her sore mouth/jaw, the best thing is to pick up rat lab blocks, put a bunch in water, and this will become lab block mush. I use this for several oldies, and a boy who has no top incisors. For now you can pick up baby cereal and offer that but its not a balanced diet like the lab blocks would be.

Where are you located?
 
As for guineapigs, they and rabbits are 2 pets I wouldn't get. They seem low maintenance but when a guineapig gets sick you have to RUN to the vet. They stop eating and they go into stasis which can lead to organ shutdown very quickly. My friend ran a guineapig rescue and she was constantly at the vet. Once they get older too, the issues start to really happen. With rats you have a chance to try things at home at times, and sometimes a bit more time leeway to get them to the vet. They often show some signs as they are getting sick unlike piggies.
 
It sounds like you had a fun read of ratbehavior.org, which is a fantastic site. So now try this one on for size. This is the rat medical bible most of us follow. Its constantly being updated with the newest information. I have helped a lot of rescues with this Bible of ours :)

http://ratguide.com
 
Massachusattes USA and alright, more ratfood and whole grains, less protien. And I know a place where I can order lab grade blocks online, Mainly rat rescue has an online store. I do, however, have 12 bucks left on amazon.com so I dunno...

I can imagine the hysterics the girls are going to go into when i have to lower their peanut butter intake... looooooooool. total peanut butter withdrawels. They like to lick the stuff rather than chew it, and pull the bits of peanut out and eat them if its crunchy, never ever had a problem with them choking on it. And because they have to spend time on chewing it, they don't fight with each other over it as a resource.

*sighs* have to improvise a rest cage for oracle. The guinea pig's former cage would normally do, I've been preparing it as a play/rest/quarantine cage, but the wheat grass i planted for a cage bottom hasn't matured enough to weather Oracle ripping it apart.

I'm gonna use the cage top for the old guinea pig cage, just have to find a substitute tray. Lots of cardboard boxes around, maybe i can cut the bottom couple inches off? I really want that wheat grass to finish growing. I have three critter companions who'd love it. Glados, Oracle and my guinea pig B'lanna.

BTW lilspaz Twiggy is so cute.

As for the block mush, I actually made that once. I had a lot of food dust left at the bottom of the container I use for rat food and wasn't getting paid till the next day so I couldn't go to the store immediately. I thought... soooo... chicken bones and carrot pieces or rat block mush? Those carrots don't look so good I'm gonna try making rat block mush.
 
As for guineapigs, they and rabbits are 2 pets I wouldn't get. They seem low maintenance but when a guineapig gets sick you have to RUN to the vet. They stop eating and they go into stasis which can lead to organ shutdown very quickly. My friend ran a guineapig rescue and she was constantly at the vet. Once they get older too, the issues start to really happen. With rats you have a chance to try things at home at times, and sometimes a bit more time leeway to get them to the vet. They often show some signs as they are getting sick unlike piggies.

I suspect as groceries get more expensive more and more people are going to look into rabbits for food. As for teh piggies, I needed a cuddle animal. The girls wouldn't cuddle, neither would the cat. The cat would rub but refuse to cuddle.

Before I had the guinea pig I had ferrets, they weren't planned. My former roomie's aunt got them for him to try to teach him some responsibility. He in turn shurked aforementioned responsibility at every turn and finally Gordon and Wheatley the Valve Fan Ferrets became mine.

But they had never been taught to go poopie in their cage (and not on the baseboards) and nothing I did could convince them that baseboards were not toilets. :thud:that was me trying to clean up after them. On my hands and knees every other day scrubbing ferret poo. Oh they'd cuddle. Wheatley never made Booboo in my bed or on cloth. Always on baseboards and /carpets!!!/ Only time my tendency to collect clutter has ever worked in my favor. He wouldn't poop in places where there was something between him and the baseboard.

Gordon and Wheatley went to the Educated Ferret rescue... http://www.theeducatedferret.net/Pages/default.aspx

I cried so hard i gave myself a headache, but ma was right, as she often is. I was tiring myself out trying to clean them up. Plus I found out that the diet they'd been fed all their lives was giving Gordon a pancreatic tumor. Thats why he always appeared to be "drunk" and didn't like to be picked up.

The guinea pig will cuddle. And while she hates getting her nails done (treats me like I'm trying to murder and squeaks in protest) she will cuddle up with me. I need active pets and I need cuddle pets. And if i can't get both traits in the same creature, then I need two less expensive creatures.

As for ferrets, my advice is unless you have a back yard and all wood/tile floors and own your own steam cleaner DON'T DO IT! And get renter's insurance so that the landlord doesn't complain when they "diggy diggy" the carpet.
 
It sounds like you had a fun read of ratbehavior.org, which is a fantastic site. So now try this one on for size. This is the rat medical bible most of us follow. Its constantly being updated with the newest information. I have helped a lot of rescues with this Bible of ours :)

http://ratguide.com

Bookmarks the guide and shakes her head. Actually, it was National Geographic. *beams* I'm going to try a preview like summary...

Rats, they fascinate, they terrify, and many humans enjoy their domestic counterparts for their cuteness and silly antics. But how much do we really know about rats? National geographic puts four stories of wild rats invading human spaces in urban Washington DC to the test.

Can rats really enter a home through an open window and a telephone wire? Can they /actually/ swim well enough to get from a sewer to a toilet pipe? What is the secret of our relationship to these odd animals? Why do they keep outwitting our attempts to keep them out of our homes? National geographic investigates these stories and more in "Rat Genius."

Turns out they can swim for up to three days, hold their breath for up to three minutes, dive and fish for minnows, detect poisons, memorize spaces and even find landmines as accurately as bomb sniffing dogs can. They are the closest thing mother nature has made to real life superheroes, fast, smart, and very hard to control when they've colonized an area.
 
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There is a big difference in behaviour from wild rats with survival instincts to our very spoiled domesticated pet rats.
BTW, I wanted to say, don't separated sweet Oracle from her buddies. She should stay with them, it's the least amount of stress.
 
The others have already given you great advice, but I did also want to add that you should be very careful with peanut butter. From what I have learned, rats should not be given sticky/gummy foods as they can easily choke..a thin smear of peanut butter on something, as a sometimes treat, does not sound too bad, but just make sure not to give big globs of it to your rats. And yes, peanut butter is high protein, so another reason to be careful about giving your babies too much of that. Just an fyi. :)

*If I am wrong about sticky or gummy foods with rats, someone on the forum can correct me! :)
 
The recommended diet for rats is 80% good quality lab block available at all times (oxbow regal rat 16% protein, Harlan Teklad 2014, Living World hamster extrusion)
the other 20% is daily vegs and occasional healthy treats such as a piece of fruit, cooked quinoa, cooked oatmeal, organic cereal, etc
Watch out for GMOs, salt, and sugar

Forbidden foods list id here http://www.ratshackforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=590

Since you are looking for good information on rats, I would suggest that you read the threads in the forum reference guide
 
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