MadamBelladonna
Well-Known Member
Haven't been on in a while, but had to share this...I felt so terrible...
I finally decided to start introducing Dusty to the other boys, Gus and Algernon. His cage has been next to theirs for several weeks now so I thought the time was ripe to start, plus I had an entirely empty night on my hands.
Got out a spare cage and plopped all three of the little guys into it with a handful of banana Gerber puffs. For a solid 15-20 minutes everything was going SPECTACULAR. They were getting along fine, not freezing up or anything and even doing a little bit of grooming. Of course I was just pleased as punch and was starting to think maybe intros wouldn't last too long.
Then something happened.
I have NO CLUE what started it or who, it happened so quickly. One minute they were getting along great while I watched next to the open cage, the next moment, they were ALL 3 trying to kill each other-literally. This was not a mild "Get away from my snacks" fight, it was an "I wanna rip you open and watch your guts spill" kind of fight.
Naturally, I did the only thing I could think of: I thrust my arm into the middle of the fight. Someone (no clue who) took a big chunk out of my left arm, and had a ton of scratches all over my arm. I grabbed Algernon and Dusty, leaving Gus in the spare cage. I put Algernon back in his own cage and Dusty in his, looked them over just really quick, and then ran to the bathroom to tend to my arm, which was dripping blood all over the floor and swelling up at that point.
After I got the bites cleaned and bandaged, I went back to the rats, intending to tell them off for fighting. I happened to see Algernon's cage first (he was in the CN) and noticed there was a very bloody piece of poo in there. Algernon came to the door and looked at me, and I saw a bit of blood around his mouth. I ran up, and saw that his ENTIRE back end was drenched in bright red blood.
I, of course, panicked immediately and opened the door. He would not let me touch him at ALL-usually he just about jumps out of the cage to be picked up. I shut the door and went and got a white towel to lay down over the floor to cover up the poop so it wouldn't get the wound dirty (and I chose white to see how badly he was bleeding). Within a few minutes the towel had trails of blood all over it.
I ran and got on the computer and looked up what to do about serious rat injuries. A bunch of people said put flour on the wound to stop the bleeding, so I filled a mixing bowl with flour, stuck it in the cage, and carefully dipped him in it. There was so much blood that I couldn't even tell what was bleeding.
Well, the flour worked pretty quickly but by then he had lost quite a bit of blood. He was very lethargic and wouldn't come to the door when I opened the cage, just layed there and stared at me. I thought he was going to die. I moved his water bottle down so he wouldn't have to reach for it and I set him over by it so all he'd have to do was lift his head a little. I took all of the hard food out of his cage (if his anus was cut, I didn't want him to have to strain) and replaced it with baby oatmeal.
After that, I started getting really dizzy (I'm, for some reason, really sensitive to puncture wounds, usually only happens after shots-rat bite was DEEP) so I layed down for about 20 minutes. Algernon did take several drinks, I could hear the ball in the water bottle moving. When I felt better, I went and checked on him. He had cleaned all the blood off and I saw he had 2 bites: one on his testicles and one right at the base of his tail.
I carefully cleaned the bites and dabbed a tiny bit of neosporin on each cut. He did start eating the oatmeal after a little bit which calmed me down somewhat, but he was still pretty apathetic.
That was last Friday, and you can't even tell now that he had ever been bitten. I kept all the boys separate the whole time Algernon was healing and now I'm terrified to even put Gus back in with him, since I don't know which rat bit him. I just feel so bad because Algernon NEVER starts a fight, but he's got the worst luck. In his life, he's survived at least 3 resp. infections, an eye infection, losing that eye, and now this. He's the most beat up rat I have ever had, but with the sweetest attitude. I don't want him alone, but I'm scared to move any of the boys together and I can't afford neuters...feel awful, wish I had shortened the first intro...they were just getting along so well that I didn't want to split them up again...
Anyway, Algernon is okay now and my arm is healing pretty well too, still a little sore. It was swollen for DAYS. Algernon seems to like having the run of the cage, but I hate for all of them to be split up like that and Gus is still in the spare cage, which is much smaller than what he's used to. Should I try any more intros? I don't want call it quits after one fight, but I don't want Algernon having any more bad luck than he's already had in his little life. It scares the crap out of me!
I finally decided to start introducing Dusty to the other boys, Gus and Algernon. His cage has been next to theirs for several weeks now so I thought the time was ripe to start, plus I had an entirely empty night on my hands.
Got out a spare cage and plopped all three of the little guys into it with a handful of banana Gerber puffs. For a solid 15-20 minutes everything was going SPECTACULAR. They were getting along fine, not freezing up or anything and even doing a little bit of grooming. Of course I was just pleased as punch and was starting to think maybe intros wouldn't last too long.
Then something happened.
I have NO CLUE what started it or who, it happened so quickly. One minute they were getting along great while I watched next to the open cage, the next moment, they were ALL 3 trying to kill each other-literally. This was not a mild "Get away from my snacks" fight, it was an "I wanna rip you open and watch your guts spill" kind of fight.
Naturally, I did the only thing I could think of: I thrust my arm into the middle of the fight. Someone (no clue who) took a big chunk out of my left arm, and had a ton of scratches all over my arm. I grabbed Algernon and Dusty, leaving Gus in the spare cage. I put Algernon back in his own cage and Dusty in his, looked them over just really quick, and then ran to the bathroom to tend to my arm, which was dripping blood all over the floor and swelling up at that point.
After I got the bites cleaned and bandaged, I went back to the rats, intending to tell them off for fighting. I happened to see Algernon's cage first (he was in the CN) and noticed there was a very bloody piece of poo in there. Algernon came to the door and looked at me, and I saw a bit of blood around his mouth. I ran up, and saw that his ENTIRE back end was drenched in bright red blood.
I, of course, panicked immediately and opened the door. He would not let me touch him at ALL-usually he just about jumps out of the cage to be picked up. I shut the door and went and got a white towel to lay down over the floor to cover up the poop so it wouldn't get the wound dirty (and I chose white to see how badly he was bleeding). Within a few minutes the towel had trails of blood all over it.
I ran and got on the computer and looked up what to do about serious rat injuries. A bunch of people said put flour on the wound to stop the bleeding, so I filled a mixing bowl with flour, stuck it in the cage, and carefully dipped him in it. There was so much blood that I couldn't even tell what was bleeding.
Well, the flour worked pretty quickly but by then he had lost quite a bit of blood. He was very lethargic and wouldn't come to the door when I opened the cage, just layed there and stared at me. I thought he was going to die. I moved his water bottle down so he wouldn't have to reach for it and I set him over by it so all he'd have to do was lift his head a little. I took all of the hard food out of his cage (if his anus was cut, I didn't want him to have to strain) and replaced it with baby oatmeal.
After that, I started getting really dizzy (I'm, for some reason, really sensitive to puncture wounds, usually only happens after shots-rat bite was DEEP) so I layed down for about 20 minutes. Algernon did take several drinks, I could hear the ball in the water bottle moving. When I felt better, I went and checked on him. He had cleaned all the blood off and I saw he had 2 bites: one on his testicles and one right at the base of his tail.
I carefully cleaned the bites and dabbed a tiny bit of neosporin on each cut. He did start eating the oatmeal after a little bit which calmed me down somewhat, but he was still pretty apathetic.
That was last Friday, and you can't even tell now that he had ever been bitten. I kept all the boys separate the whole time Algernon was healing and now I'm terrified to even put Gus back in with him, since I don't know which rat bit him. I just feel so bad because Algernon NEVER starts a fight, but he's got the worst luck. In his life, he's survived at least 3 resp. infections, an eye infection, losing that eye, and now this. He's the most beat up rat I have ever had, but with the sweetest attitude. I don't want him alone, but I'm scared to move any of the boys together and I can't afford neuters...feel awful, wish I had shortened the first intro...they were just getting along so well that I didn't want to split them up again...
Anyway, Algernon is okay now and my arm is healing pretty well too, still a little sore. It was swollen for DAYS. Algernon seems to like having the run of the cage, but I hate for all of them to be split up like that and Gus is still in the spare cage, which is much smaller than what he's used to. Should I try any more intros? I don't want call it quits after one fight, but I don't want Algernon having any more bad luck than he's already had in his little life. It scares the crap out of me!
