Teddy - Little Old Man - RIP

Got a video of Teddy running around the empty hallway today ..you can see and hear how he walks funny in the rear end.

God I love him :heart:

[youtube:1yr8dva3]MYwGF8r2Uxk[/youtube:1yr8dva3]

 

[rattytat]

:heart: Who couldn't love Teddy! I'm on my way right now to the grocery store to buy saltfree, fatfree popcorn. My ratties are obviously neglected :giggle:

 

:heart: Who couldn't love Teddy! I'm on my way right now to the grocery store to buy saltfree, fatfree popcorn. My ratties are obviously neglected :giggle:

Obviously :giggle:

 

Oh, be sure to turn your sound up! you can hear the piitter patter of his little feets!

 

[jorats]

Oh his HED is very mild. He still has very good use of his back legs.

 

Oh his HED is very mild. He still has very good use of his back legs.

Good to hear! I'v never actually seen a rat with full HED before ..I'm going to be shocked when I do, since Teddy looks so bad to me :giggle:

 

[jorats]

If you check out my intro videos, you'll see the Chief with severe HED. He's the Siamese.

 

 

I have been noticing over the last two weeks, Teddy has been drinking A LOT of water .....

He has also started loosing some weight!

I just posted videos here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26190&p=361671#p361671

 

[lilspaz68]

Renal failure is part of the aging process for rats. Their kidneys are slowly not able to filter things out as well as they used to, and they start drinking more water to "manually" flush the toxins. It's pretty normal for oldies.

Excessive proteins all their life can damage the liver so this is one of the reason we try to keep the proteins and fats, etc low in their diets...we don't need to speed this process up anymore than it is.

 

ok.

Teddy has only had extrusion and oxbow his whole life so his protein levels have never been high!

 

[ChrisK]

Sending my best to Teddy... You know, in those photos... he looks gorgeous to me! :heart:

 

[jorats]

Like lilspaz said, it's pretty much part of aging so it even though he's had good protein levels, it sill normal for him to be having come slight issues. He's dealing with that with extra intake of water.

 

[mamarat]

I find they also drink more when it's warm in the house.

 

Ok, thanks!

 

[DadRat]

Yup, our old boy Dominic drank a lot in his last month or two. Vet said renal failure is not uncommon in elderly rats.

 

Poor old man eating his banana :heart:

 

Is weight loss normal when they get super old?

Teddy was 560 grams July 5th, today (Aug 12th) he is 440 ..thats 120 gram loss in a little more than a month.

He still acts fine, his back end is not getting any better ..but he has a TON of energy and he is always eating, his teeth are fine ..he still eats hard food, and he gets ensure + softfood with olive oil.

He is after sagging A LOT ..he has a big pot belly ..but from him sagging I can feel all his little bones in his spine.

I know he is not getting younger at 27 months old, and I know 27months old is OLD for his family history.

He has kidney problems (drinks SO much) and he has HED.

See he is still so happy

[youtube:37xu8r42]Iq_ga_QHifE[/youtube:37xu8r42]

Turn your sound up so you can hear his little feet dragging sounds.

 

Video Posted now ^^

 

[Unepuce]

Pollux is 28 months old, is pretty advanced on his HED, and he loses a lot of weight weekly - from 20 to 30 grams. I'd say it's pretty normal, no matter how sad it is. He is now just the shadow of the 750 g rat he used to be (I think he was around 620 g last Saturday, maybe less)