fenshae
Well-Known Member
I posted awhile back about my "foreign exchange student" rat Token, who I'm babysitting for a friend, and I wanted to update and get some advice.
Token is somewhere around a year and a half and is a very lovey, kissy black-hooded squish. And when I say squish, I mean SQUISH. He's huge, and also just *fat*; I've seen rats that are big, but I've never seen one that actually had rolls of fat. Also, he has a particular and very ooky odor that I couldn't figure out.
Jorats suggested I check his penis for a possible plug, and sure enough -- yep. he's apparently had it for so long, the poor guy, that a layer of it had hardened over on top and was white and gooey underneath, like a black-head at the tip of his penis. Not nice at all. I cleaned that up for him as best I could (it's very, very hard to hold down a fat squirmy rat, keep his penis erect, and clean him all at the same time), bu I suspect this will be a recurring problem if he doesn't drop some weight. Anybody know how often I should be checking and cleaning, and have any suggestions on how to make that whole process easier?
Also, lately I've noticed that he sheds, and he seems to be losing hair around one eye. The skin around the eye is darker/reddish and almost...flakey. It might be poryphin, but if it is it's only on that one eye. Here, let me see if I can get a picture....*attempts to wrangle rat, should have waited for boyfriend to come home*
Dangling...he doesn't look THAT big in the photos, he's just, like I said, literally squishy.
This is a terrible blurry picture, but you can kind of make out that the ring on the one eye seems a little larger than the other?
Still more blurry, my apologies. But see how it looks kind of reddish/irritated? Or am I totally seeing things?
Any guesses?
The person who I'm watching him for was very adamant that I not intro him with my other rats because he's supposedly very aggressive, but I'm going to give it a try anyway. My boys are all very laid back and easy to intro, and I think he'd benefit from a bigger cage and younger cagemates to keep him active. I'm not exactly comfortable explaining this to the girl (I don't really know her -- she's a friend of my boyfriend's best friend, I just got involved to help a rat), especially as she hasn't taken an active role in his care since he got here (he's supposed to just be staying here temporarily and she was going to contribute to his care all the time)....but I guess I have to let her know what I'm doing for the health of the rat....*sigh* bah, conflict.
Token is somewhere around a year and a half and is a very lovey, kissy black-hooded squish. And when I say squish, I mean SQUISH. He's huge, and also just *fat*; I've seen rats that are big, but I've never seen one that actually had rolls of fat. Also, he has a particular and very ooky odor that I couldn't figure out.
Jorats suggested I check his penis for a possible plug, and sure enough -- yep. he's apparently had it for so long, the poor guy, that a layer of it had hardened over on top and was white and gooey underneath, like a black-head at the tip of his penis. Not nice at all. I cleaned that up for him as best I could (it's very, very hard to hold down a fat squirmy rat, keep his penis erect, and clean him all at the same time), bu I suspect this will be a recurring problem if he doesn't drop some weight. Anybody know how often I should be checking and cleaning, and have any suggestions on how to make that whole process easier?
Also, lately I've noticed that he sheds, and he seems to be losing hair around one eye. The skin around the eye is darker/reddish and almost...flakey. It might be poryphin, but if it is it's only on that one eye. Here, let me see if I can get a picture....*attempts to wrangle rat, should have waited for boyfriend to come home*
Dangling...he doesn't look THAT big in the photos, he's just, like I said, literally squishy.
This is a terrible blurry picture, but you can kind of make out that the ring on the one eye seems a little larger than the other?
Still more blurry, my apologies. But see how it looks kind of reddish/irritated? Or am I totally seeing things?
Any guesses?
The person who I'm watching him for was very adamant that I not intro him with my other rats because he's supposedly very aggressive, but I'm going to give it a try anyway. My boys are all very laid back and easy to intro, and I think he'd benefit from a bigger cage and younger cagemates to keep him active. I'm not exactly comfortable explaining this to the girl (I don't really know her -- she's a friend of my boyfriend's best friend, I just got involved to help a rat), especially as she hasn't taken an active role in his care since he got here (he's supposed to just be staying here temporarily and she was going to contribute to his care all the time)....but I guess I have to let her know what I'm doing for the health of the rat....*sigh* bah, conflict.
