One of my poor mischief has to have an eye out :(

[ConfusedPixie]

Apparently one of my ratties has managed to pierce his eye on something, most probably his brothers claw when play fighting, and his iris was coming through his cornea :( My poor little boy, I feel awful and am so worried about him :( We left him with the vet at 2:30 and he's going down in the morning as long as no emergencies come in :(

My 2 girls are booked in to be spayed on Monday too whilst my other boy has only just gotten better after having a bit of an URI.

I feel like an awful rat mother at the moment :(

Why on earth would you feel like a bad RatMum? These things happen. You can't stop it. It's part of their boisterous rough and tumble that you love about them and unfortunately things happen.

At the vets they'll keep him comfortable and give him pain relief as he needs it. Your other rats will be a bit bewildered but small mammals can cope with lost body parts. One eye will affect his distance judging but he'll get the hand of it.

When your girls are spayed hopefully you can get them all back to their routine (though you'll have your hands full )

Well, the girls are very new rescues (we got them on Sunday, they are year old) so feeling a bit useless with them at the moment too, small progresses are made most days but we still have one who hides whenever she sees us and the other who I'm trust training after she bit me yesterday morning. The hidey one has started coming out to sit in her new hammock after we've sat there for 15 or so minutes now and the bitey one is very happy to explore, I was just a massive twat who broke the first rule of rat ownership by poking my finger into the bars to poke her belly, I can get away with it with the boys but she obviously felt very threatened! Poor thing, she's slowly trusting me again I think.

We haven't managed to clean out their little hidey hole as one of them is so nervous which I feel awful about, god knows how we'll get her into the carry case to get her to the vet on Monday!

Just realised that our boys have been sitting in their piss today as well, as they were destroying the fleece layer we had on their favourite shelf and, of course, that was soaking up their pee before, so I ended up taking a very smelly rat to the vet who was still a bit damp from sitting in his wee What they will think of me I don't know, I've called them at least ten times over the past week for advice on quarantining the girls, spaying, the boys having URIs, etc.

Feeling a bit better about it all now and how it's just ridiculous coincidence that it's all happening so early into rat ownership!

The next big thing will be introducing the girls and boys at the end of March, we're hoping to have them i the same cage by Easter so that we can take all four home with us but I'm not sure how it'll happen at the moment!

Feel free to ignore me ranting, it's been a stressful week generally and taking Howl to the vet today was just the icing on the cake.

Sounds like you've really been through it with your ratty friends. I hope after Monday it all settles down.

They can cope with missing parts and do adapt. We have a squirrel who visits daily who has lost most of his tail. I was worried when he first climbed the bird feeder as they all use tails for balance but he manages fine and is actually more agile than the others. He does look funny when he's trying to do 'angry squirrel' and shake his tail as he only has a tuft to shake and it doesn't quite have the same effect

Ooh, it's your Rat In The Fridge isn't it?
Poor boy, he's a baby rat isn't he?

Fernie That is quite amusing I'm hoping he adapts well, we're going to change around the cage tonight to create two levels for minimal jumping/falling room whilst he recovers, Haku will live with it for a week or two.

It is Mr Howl Houdini the Rat In The Fridge. They're starting to moult into their first coats and their colourings are changing slightly, but Howl still has his diamond until they shave it off tomorrow to operate. Hopefully it'll grow back in.

The boys were 12 weeks yesterday, assuming that the breeder offered them to us at 6 weeks on the dot.

The girls are around a year according to the previous owners. So we're hoping that they'll be introduced happily as after introducing babies to one another it's supposedly next easiest to introduce adult females to young rats.

Have you got Mr Howl home now Pixie ?
How is he doing?

Howl is home, he came home yesterday afternoon. I've barely seen him tbh but he seems to be doing okay. I cried when I saw him though th he stitches are near but it's very obvious which is sad. He's also in a tiny hamster cage for a week which isn't great but all DP could buy from the two pretty shops he checked at short notice for less than 50. Consideing our cage was 40 it's ridiculous how much the markup is on cages in pet shops.

Hi

Scritches to poor Howl. Hope he's healing up ok. As others have said he'll adapt fine to having one eye.
Just wanted to ask whether you're a member of the Fancy Rats Forum? You mentioned above you'd rang the vets numerous times for advice and all the things you listed the experts on FR could help with. They're a great community, I've been a member since 2009 and they were absolutely invaluable to me and taught me all I know about rat care.
Good luck with your intros, I know mixed sex groups can be the best to have, the group dynamics are different compared to same sex groups as of course it's natural for them to be in a mixed sex group. I was a keeper of just boys myself, I'd have loved a mixed sex group.

I'm a member of ratforum, regularly browse the others too :) A lot of the things I've spoken to the vets about involve them directly really, which is why I've called them so often, it just so happens that everything has happened at once! Sods law I need to go in tomorrow for Howl's check up and to rebook the girls spaying as that had to be cancelled on Monday due to Howl needing the spare cage!

He's back in with Haku as of a few hours ago which is good as both boys were quite down. He's been sulking most of the afternoon though as Haku beat him in a dominance fight, which has rarely happened in the past as Howl was always bigger but Haku had a growth spurt last week and is now the bigger one Interesting to watch though!