Young, lone rat.

The Rat Shack Forum

Help Support The Rat Shack Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Abyes_Shovel

New Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2022
Messages
4
Location
England
So I lost one of my girls to a pituitary tumour this morning, it was all very quick and although she responded well to the steroids a brain tumour is a brain tumour after all and she sadly passed, although thankfully she was comfortable. Her sister is left over now, she's only 17 weeks old. Now I've had elderly rats be on their own for the last couple of months of their lives and live quite happily despite the circumstances alone, with lots of attention from myself of course. Having a very young rat alone however is totally new to me and I'm not really sure how to progress. I'm considering trying to find another lone female and house them close by, but not in the same cage. I've stuck her a (safe, small with no beans or plastic eyes etc.) Plush toy in to snuggle up to if she wants, and a sock because she loves socks. Do I wait a while and look for another lonely girl? Or will that potentially just cause her stress?
I will of course devote plenty of time to her myself but rats aren't solitary creatures and I don't want her to have a miserable and lonely life.
 
Sorry for your loss. How long have you known about the tumor? Hope her sister will be just fine in spite of being alone.
 
I only knew for a couple of days, it came on suddenly though there are warning signs I may have missed. I've never had a rat or any other animal for that matter with a brain tumour so it's perfectly possible I missed early warning signs. At any rate they wouldn't have operated none of the vets in my area would have so the outcome would have been the same. I'm just glad she was comfortable for the last couple of days of life. She actually went fairly back to normal, I assume the pressure on her brain from the tumour caused sudden death as it was quite apparent she died mid-movement. So at least it wasn't drawn out. Arwen is doing surprisingly okay right now, I'm going to get some more girls in the next couple of months (due to move house soon so gonna let her settle into our new home before introducing new stressors). I have loads of time to spend with her but rats need other rats, it'll do her good.
 
Back
Top