I feel like a crap rat owner :(

[PixieofCatan]

Last week on the Monday Aeryn sprained/strained one of her arms. Took her to the vet, got her metacam, isolated her for a few days and put her back in with the other two girls on Thursday night.

We went back to Essex for the weekend so the rat sitter had them all. Went to get them Monday night and sitter says "Oh, she was limping this morning, I thought she may have reinjured her leg." So we look and she's not limping, not swollen, so fine. Then sitter says that it was her back leg that she was supporting. Great.

Yesterday morning her right leg was swollen and she was limping/supporting as expected. So she came out of her cage at 8:30am, stayed out with me all day in a snood and in a bed box I made up for her on the shelf behind my desk and went into the hospital cage in the evening before I went to bed. She fell twice yesterday when out too. Got really squeaky in the evening but not after either of the falls particularly. She had a moment in a toy box with Nibbles with lots of squeaking and I'm not sure if she was stuck or something.

This morning I get her out and she's supporting her other leg now. Very very squeaky too. No swelling on that leg and I gave it a good feel and it seemed fine this morning. But later today she started getting squeaky about it. So she went back to the vet for another round of metacam and a full week resting it, which means being in the tiny hospital cage for the next week :(

My poor girl :(

Poor Aeryn.. Hopefully the Metcacm and bed rest will do whats needed, she'll be bored and grumpy but that can't helped though no doubt she'll have extra cuddle time.

But , dear Pixie you are NOT a crap RatMum at all.
A crap owner would be one that let their animal suffer. You have got vet advice for her.

Have they X-Rayed her? (I can imagine it's not easy to X-Ray any rodent) but I remember a statistic about a fall that would kill a man, a rat or mouse would walk away from. So are they particularly bouncy or able to fall well or are they Bones of Steel?

We have all three girls out at the moment and they're going a bit mad, chasing each other and whatnot. Obviously the metacam does the trick No doubt she'll be feeling it tomorrow morning! I have a bookcase that is right behind my desk and we've made it so that two of the shelves are for storing ratty things, but it's like a little rat playground for them too, so they're busy chasing each other round that

I feel like if it's not one thing it's another with them, the vet even had a little laugh when she saw it was me with Aeryn! She actually has two rats of her own now so we have had quite a few good chats on our numerous visits to her when she was thinking about getting them and then preparing for it, now she has a pair :)

The vet was good though, she gave me double the amount of metacam to save the cost of another vet visit when it inevitably happens again! We didn't get an X-ray, it requires putting them under anaesthetic so they avoid it. She reckons it's a sprain or strain, but to give her at least five days to recover in the hospital cage. I think I'll give her a good week this time. I am going to make a couple of plammocks too to essentially cut the height of the cage in half and hopefully stop her injuring herself. I also need to find some way to stop them ripping up the bottom fabric as the first sprain was from Nibbles flipping her on the wire bottom of the cage and her catching her arm. I use binder clips to hold down the fabric but they manage to get it up in minutes
z\
^^ Zhaan says hello

The nurse just gave me a wry grin when handing the meds over, seeing as she did the same last week, and a few weeks before that when the babies were spayed, and not long before that with Ruby... They must think I'm the most paranoid rat owner in the world. I took them all in for "MOTs" at the beginning of September too.