ratkin412
Well-Known Member
My sweet Gracie is not pregnant, for sure.
I have had her for 7 months now, and she was advertised on craigslist as a 'mild mannered couple year old rat' .... so I have no idea how old she really is.
She was pretty thin (in my opinion) when I got her, but it has only been in the last few months that she got so big. She has had 2 surgeries for tumors, and is currently on long term baytril because without it her myco gets really bad. Right now she breathes without noises unless she is picked up, then she sometimes makes 'monkey noises' which seem associated with her breathing & are not normal rat 'peeps'.
I took her to my vet (who I trust and feel is pretty good) last week because she has a tumor not quite on her neck, but not quite on her left shoulder, either. The vet said that she wanted to hold off on surgery until the tumor started interfering with Gracie's life. Gracie now has a more pronounced Hind End Degeneration (HED) which became noticeable in February of this year. She is still mobile and can use her back legs, but her 'suspension' is really low and she walks with a shuffle.
While I was at the vet, I asked her to see if she thought Gracie might have internal tumors that were making her "look' fat. (My other two rats do not have the extreme pear shape and girth that my sweet Gracie has.) My vet said she did not feel any internal masses and she did not think Gracie had internal tumors.
I thought I would present her case here to see if the general consensus was that she is just really fat (she doesn't seem to eat more than the other rats, but she has a preoccupation with food more than the other two girls do).
Again, this rat is not pregnant.
Photos:
(she is the grey one on the right
)
In the below photo, you can almost see the tumor near her neck on the left side. It is why she looks like her arm is a little ball.
She also sits sort of lopsided, that is to say, from a top-down view on her as she eats she looks non-symmetrical, sorta leaning one way and the opposite way at the same time without being straight.. if that makes sense.
SO, what do the RatShack Experts think???
I have had her for 7 months now, and she was advertised on craigslist as a 'mild mannered couple year old rat' .... so I have no idea how old she really is.
She was pretty thin (in my opinion) when I got her, but it has only been in the last few months that she got so big. She has had 2 surgeries for tumors, and is currently on long term baytril because without it her myco gets really bad. Right now she breathes without noises unless she is picked up, then she sometimes makes 'monkey noises' which seem associated with her breathing & are not normal rat 'peeps'.
I took her to my vet (who I trust and feel is pretty good) last week because she has a tumor not quite on her neck, but not quite on her left shoulder, either. The vet said that she wanted to hold off on surgery until the tumor started interfering with Gracie's life. Gracie now has a more pronounced Hind End Degeneration (HED) which became noticeable in February of this year. She is still mobile and can use her back legs, but her 'suspension' is really low and she walks with a shuffle.
While I was at the vet, I asked her to see if she thought Gracie might have internal tumors that were making her "look' fat. (My other two rats do not have the extreme pear shape and girth that my sweet Gracie has.) My vet said she did not feel any internal masses and she did not think Gracie had internal tumors.
I thought I would present her case here to see if the general consensus was that she is just really fat (she doesn't seem to eat more than the other rats, but she has a preoccupation with food more than the other two girls do).
Again, this rat is not pregnant.
Photos:
(she is the grey one on the right
)
In the below photo, you can almost see the tumor near her neck on the left side. It is why she looks like her arm is a little ball.
She also sits sort of lopsided, that is to say, from a top-down view on her as she eats she looks non-symmetrical, sorta leaning one way and the opposite way at the same time without being straight.. if that makes sense.
SO, what do the RatShack Experts think???
