What's that?

That is Doctor imitating an orange.  He, apparently, made a wrong turn when he was sneaking into his stash of pepitas.  Doc loves his pepitas.

Success.  He found his way to the right bag.  Here, he enjoys nibbling on his pepitas.

He's my only rat with a passion for pepitas, and we've been keeping a little bag of pepitas on the counter over the couch where the rats play.  Doc frequently finagles his way up to the bag, knocks it down, spills it.  He's always making a mess with his pepitas.  But, the other rats leave the pepitas alone.

By the way, orange rinds are another of the rare foods that you don't want to feed to rats, specifically male rats.  Orange rind contains a carcinogen, d-limonene, which is a problem for male rats, but not female.  Here's a post about that at RMCA.

And, if anyone is wondering, no, he did not nibble on the oranges.

Daytime and Rats

Sam says, "Seriously, I'm try to snooze here."

I just read an interesting article from Popular Science about how rats exposed to lots of light become depressed.  Rather, they prefer darkness.

This is a bit of a no brainer to me, but I have to think about how my current rat room is set up.  They have a night light on all night for my benefit.  Poor little guys.

Oh, and I have one criticism of the article.  It is my understanding and experience that rats are NOT nocturnal, but rather crepuscular.  They prefer dawn and evening hours and prefer to sleep during the night and daytime.  I definitely see my guys more active during those hours, but they seem to party all night, too.  (Indeed, last night they knocked over their litter box.  sigh.)  And, Doc snoozes in the afternoon as i frequently spend some time with him during the morning hours.  He eagerly waits for me to take him out for his morning romp, but if I bother him in the afternoon, I get the Doc's patented evil eye.

Regardless of whether rats are nocturnal or crepuscular, if they develop depression when exposed to more light than darkness, that's something to consider for pet rat owners.

Easter 2013 - Peeps S'mores

We had Peeps S'mores for Easter and, of course, the rats had to share.

Disclaimer - S'mores are NOT healthy, but this is a treat.  Also, chocolate is not poison for rats.  Indeed, chocolate can be therapeutic.

 Sam and Carl are investigating the strange yummy.  Doc is lurking in the background.

 Here, Sam goes for the peep.

 I just love this picture of Carl.  He's like, "WHAT???  Where did it go?"

 Doc enjoying the chocolate.

And, here's a Peeps S'more going into the oven.

It's 2 squares of graham cracker, some chocolate, and a yellow peep.  Baked at 350 deg Fahrenheit for about 5 minutes.  For the rats, I made sure it cooled a tad so none of my guys would get burnt tongues.

Dean, Our Cuddle Rat

Here's Dean being all cuddly.

You haven't seen a lot of Dean because we've been struggling to treat a skin rash of his.  And, finally success.  After multiple oral antibiotic courses, a skin scraping, etc, we finally used something that worked.

My vet was attributing his rash to an allergy.  I'm thinking he must have had a secondary bacterial infection resistant to the antibiotics he was taking on top of the allergy.  Anyways, what worked you might ask. (I am not implying that my vet didn't think the rash was infected, but rather that she thought the ongoing issue was an allergy.)

Well, the first treatment that showed some improvement was brushing him using a toothbrush saturated in chlorhexidine solution.  But, that particularly solution was going to take daily treatments and we would miss a few days and lose ground against his rash.

When we ran out of the solution the vet gave us, I bought Hibiclens which should have been the same concentration of chlorhexidine (we ran it by the vet), but it was red and the solution our vet gave us was blue.  Anyways, this stuff was potent against his rash.  We only treated him 2 or 3 times.  The red stuff was much more sticky and stayed on his fur for longer than 24 hours.  I'm wondering if the vet watered down the stuff that she gave us.

We are now a few weeks post treatment, and Dean's skin continues to improve.  He has a lot of bald spots, but I expect that time will cure that.

I guess the Hibiclens, which is a topical antiseptic and antimicrobial was able to kill the bacteria that the oral antibiotics weren't able to kill.

He's always liked to cuddle, but rubbing him used to make his scabs bleed.  Yeah, it was bad.  Now, he can cuddle and be petted to his heart's content.

I'm also thrilled that Sam's much milder rash responded well, too because Sam was much more irritable from his skin condition, and now, Sam is happy go lucky with his skin not bothering him.

Health Report - Rose

As you may have read in my blog, Mabel has recently recovered from a severe bout of pneumonia. On the other hand, Rose... Rose had a much milder bout of pneumonia and she just hasn't bounced back. Last week, her vet informed us that Rose wasn't likely to recover. There's very little air movement in her lungs. She's back on 2 antibiotics and theophylline, and she's supposed to receive albuterol twice per day, but we stopped that because it was too traumatic for her. However, if Mabel starts wheezing, we can give her two puffs of albuterol, and Mabel stops wheezing.

Rose's weight is plummeting. She actually weighs less than Mabel. And, Mabel is our smallest rat.



Here's an older photo of Rose. Yeah, she's our Siamese rat. Unfortunately, Rose is cyanotic most of the time now. So, I'm sparing you a photo.

Today, though, she's been more chipper. She's been very energetic, hanging out in various hammocks and the cube. We hand feed her every time we go by the cage. I'm hoping that her increased energy is a good sign, but her vet did tell us not to expect recovery.




Here's a recent photo of Mabel grooming one of our blondies. She's gaining weight beautifully. The doctor was totally surprised that she survived never mind that she's recovering, but she's expected to remain on theophylline for life, but she's doing great off all antibiotics.

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Video - Mabel Spinning on Request & Some Health Updates

Mabel can spin on request.  She's so cute.

Check her out.

(Note:  Mabel is a rat with the rex mutation which gives her curly whiskers and fur, but she also has hair loss.  Her fur grows in and then, falls out in patches.)

By the way, I'd been working with her on charging the clicker for several days.  And, unfortunately, she had a lung exacerbation, so she took a break from training for a few days.  So, the first part of the video is from her first session after she returned to training, and the next day, she was just an extremely bright pupil and learned the spin, which is what you see in the second part of the video.


Also, Mabel saw her doctor yesterday.  The doctor was thrilled that she's gained 50 grams since her pneumonia, but she still has lung issues, so she's going to be on theophylline for the rest of her life which reallybums me out.  But, we just will have to deal with it.  At least, she likes the taste of theophylline.

And, on the subject of medicating rats, Dean has just been started on Bactrim for a secondary infection of contact dermatitis.  And, Skip Lee was thrilled to report (Skip is just amazing at medicating rats, so he gets to do all of it  --grins-- )  that Dean avidly reached for the syringe when he clicked, and Dean drank all of his Bactrim quick as can be.  A  couple of weeks ago, I'd done a few clicker training sessions with him.  This is a wonderful consequence of clicker training, easy medication administration.

Now, I need to figure out what Dean is allergic to.  Hopefully, it was a one time issue.  My rats are all on a gluten free diet because of Rose's sensitivity, so it's not wheat.

Does anyone know what the most prevalent rat allergies are other than wheat?

Diet and the Fat Rat

I have ten rats, and only one of them is fat, Walter. But, he definitely does fat well.

The 1.99 displayed on the scale means that Walter is almost 2 pounds.

Walter squeaks, "I'm round like a pancake. Gimme more pancakes. I need them for my handsome figure."
From wikipedia,

Zucker rats were bred to be a genetic model for research on obesity and hypertension. They are named after Lois M. Zucker and Theodore F. Zucker, pioneer researchers in the study of the genetics of obesity. There are two types of Zucker rat: a lean Zucker rat, denoted as the dominant trait (Fa/Fa) or (Fa/fa); and the characteristically obese (or fatty) Zucker rat, which is actually a recessive trait (fa/fa) of the leptin receptor, capable of weighing up to 1 kilogram (2.2 lb)—more than twice the average weight.[17][18][19]
Obese Zucker rats have high levels of lipids and cholesterol in their blood, are resistant to insulin without being hyperglycemic, and gain weight from an increase in both the size and number of fat cells.[20] Obesity in Zucker rats is primarily linked to their hyperphagic nature, and excessive hunger; however, food intake does not fully explain the hyperlipidemia or overall body composition.[18][20]

So, I'm thinking that my round rat, Walter, is likely related to the Zucker rats. He eats the same food as my other rats, yet he is rotund.

I, initially, thought we could get him to lose weight by exercising him. We tried arranging the cage to be more conducive for exercise, but um have you ever tried to get a rat to exercise??? I even looked at a research article in which they exercised Zucker rats. They encouraged them, and they did lose weight, but the question is how? The article detailed all sorts of encouragement which were cute and sweet, but if that didn't worked, they resorted to an electrical shock. Hmmm. Nope. Exercising Walter does not sound workable.

And, anyways, from what I've read on human weight loss. Most of weight loss is achieved through diet.

So, DIET

Walter and my rats eat a modified Sue Bee Diet. (Rose is allergic to wheat, so none of them get wheat).

For humans, a low glycemic diet helps with weight loss and simultaneously promotes satiety. I not only have read about this, but I'm on a low glycemic diet and have lost 50 pounds. So.. would this diet work for Walter? Of course, a lot of the research studies were done on rats. And, I've been reading them.... very frustrating to find out how simplistic the rat research diets are. I'm also interested in Paleo diet, but I can't seem to find research involving Zucker rats and the Paleo diet.

I'm trying to decide between two choices.

1. Put the rats on the Harlan Teklad low glycemic lab blocks. I will have to find out how to order them and whether they contain wheat. (Rose is allergic to wheat, the poor thing.)

2. Put the rats on my diet, and just provide them with a portion of every meal that I eat. (They already get snacks from my meals, but this would entail providing all of their food from my food.)

Maybe, some day, I will be able to Walter to lose some weight.
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Mabel and Rose have Pneumonia

We almost lost Mabel to pneumonia, but she's a trooper and hung in there until her medications kicked in.

I don't have any pictures when she was horribly sick. Taking pictures was the last thing we were thinking about.

Here's Mabel, the day after she began treatment. This picture made me so happy, because she was comfortable enough to curl up and sleep. The picture does not show that you could see her breathe as her tummy sucked in to move air in and out of her lungs.





I, also, missed the opportunity to get a picture of her xray. It was pretty scary her right lung was completely socked in, and her left lung had air but also had evidence of severe pneumonia. Her pulse ox was 84%, the poor thing. Her vet didn't think she would make it through the night.

Mabel spent the day sprawled on my chest. Most of the time she needed me to support her. If I put her in the cage with her buddies, she would crawl to the door and look at me, so I kept putting her back on my chest.

We returned to the vet the next day, and she was so surprised to see Mabel alive. Mabel was feeling a lot better and actually nipped the vet after she took her temperature. LOL Mabel, even when ill, is still a punk. Later, the vet wanted to show Mabel to the other vet because apparently both of them didn't expect her to survive the night. And, of course, Mabel nipped the other vet, too.

By the way, she's always been a nipper. If you don't pay attention to Mabel, she will gently grasp your skin. So, apparently, she will use the same technique when you're a vet and bothering her.

Rose, also, has pneumonia, but no where as severe as Mabel.

I do have some cute youtube videos of medicating Mabel and Rose.

Mabel's Video - Mabel takes her medications easily.

Rose's Video - Rose demonstrates the hard way to take medications.

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