When Our Ratties Pass....

[Christie]

Sausage4ever!! I didnt know that Eli will be leaving us on Saturday? If you dont mind me asking, whats wrong with him? How old is he?

Anywho...I have only had one rat die before. My little Kiwi :heart: :sad3: I went to the dollar store and bought a pretty little box for her and I wrapper her up in a fleece blanket and put a pretty picture of her in there and a little key chain thing that says I love you on it with a heart. I couldnt bring myself to berry her so my mom did and she put her behind the shed in the garden. She told me that she was berried with all the other little rodents that my cat caughts and killed so she would have lots of little friends :giggle: :cuddle: :heart: Kiwi died of an URI which I didnt catch soon enough. It makes me feel bad because she wasnt even 2 yet But her sister is still going strong and so are her 3 new sisters.

 

[sausage4ever]

Eli's three!! But he has been going down hill in the past week mostly due to his tumour gradually taking over his body, he has been dehydrated for the last week and dropping wait wait like mad...both he and I know it is time.

 

[ryelle]

All of my furkids are cremated (it is not cheap) and when I pass on I will be cremated and mixed with my babies. Totally morbid put hey you have to have a plan. I just like the idea that no matter where I go they get to go with me. I am a mourner I spend time with them after they pass crying (they are usually soaked with my tears) and loving them I do this usually till the warmth has left them and then I put them away. The bf thinks it is gross to kiss their little lifeless bodies but it makes me feel at peace because they look so peaceful.

I sure understand. I too keep them with me until I can see signs of stiffening before I wrap them up and put them in the freezer (terrified they might not be truly gone). I hold, cuddle & kiss them too and say my thankyou's and tell them my memories and cry my eyes out. Then I snip a bit of fur (or a claw from a hairless) and put it in a glassine envelope with their name on it (keep them all together in a special box), I wrap each kid with a snip of my hair so I am with them, and a chocolate chip between their front feet.
A few of my earliest are in my mom's garden, then I found a lovely spot in the woods for a few, then a friend made a fenced-in ratty cemetary on his gold claim for me and we buried some there, but the last bunch he cremated and spread their ashes in the little cemetary and that's what we'll do from now on.
I've given my family instructions to cremate all their little envelopes of fur & claws with me when I die.

I wish i'd said goodbye to my Harvey boy like that. I couldn't hack it though. Seeing him just all limp and laid there... but he wasn't even there. Well.. i dont know when he left, because i didnt even feel him leave me. I wrapped Harvey up as soon as i could. He was warm, and he was just limp. I wrapped him up so nobody could see him because he looked so vulnerable. I hid him from my boyfriend and my mum and my brother. I put his nest back in the cat box and i locked it away so nobody could see.

Im crazy :cry3: :sad3: :cry3:

Im not over him :sad3: I might do a memorial, even though it was months ago. Im swallowing the biggest lump in my throat ever, trying not to burst into tears in front of my boyfriend

 

[SQ]

until I can see signs of stiffening before I wrap them up and put them in the freezer (terrified they might not be truly gone).

Me too !!!

 

[Godmother]

Now I am all teary-eyed thinking of all the sad goodbyes and the ways we have all developed to cope. I am lucky enough to have a nice spot in the back yard at the edge of the woods. There are many ratties buried there! SQ and RatsForever buried theirs with mine. It is nice to think of them buried together, because some of them were siblings and all three of us knew and loved them. SQ's ratties were my first experience with rats, and I was deeply attached to them.

Some of the ratties were cremated, some are wrapped in fleece inside pretty boxes from the Dollar store. I had a stone engraved with ratty pawprints and the words "Faithful friends".... here come the tears again. I have planted columbines on the grave site, and will add some other shade plants this spring.

I will have to cremate some ratties in the spring. My freezer has several of SQ's and three of mine. When there are so many, if they are in boxes my poor husband has an awfully big job digging a big enough hole in our hard clay-and-rock soil!

My first ratty to die, Rhonda, is buried in a fancy little custom-made coffin. My rat-sitter's husband made it for her when he was working on a prototype. It has a nice little brass handle on the lid. My rat-sitter printed out a little poem to put inside with her. I wrapped her in pretty pink fleece and buried her with the poem. I have a photo of her in her little coffin, but didn't think that anyone would want to see a picture of a dead ratty girl.

When they die I hold them for a while and tell them how special they were to me. It is hard to put them in a box when life has so recently left them.

 

[Vanessa]

I wrap them in fleece, put them in ziploc baggies, then in a paper bag tied with ribbon. I write their name on the outside and the date of their death.
They have blocks, treats, and coins put in (always with extra coins to share with others on the river!) and then they are placed in my freezer until the ground gives and I can bury them.
In the last eight years that I have had the house, I have had over 50 rats pass away and they are buried in various spots in the backyard. I place flat stones over their spot, so I know not to dig in that spot again. I have a fairly large property for being close to the city, but I am quickly running out of safe spots. By 'safe' I mean areas that the next owners wouldn't dig up to put in something like a pool or trees. They are mostly buried on the north side, because it is shady and the area is a rug of lily of the valley in the spring and it is very pretty.
It is all very depressing. Opening my freezer all winter long and seeing their paper baggies, finding a good spot every spring before the earth becomes clay with the heat, digging a two to three foot deep hole so nobody can dig them up, taking their bodies out of the freezer and transporting them out in box or bin, stacking them up and filling in the hole, arranging the stone.
A decade of doing that every year, sometimes even twice (spring and fall), can really start to get to a person. Sometimes it is sunny, but I try to pick a day when it is raining because it seems more appropriate.
Plus, I have rats that are not mine buried along with my own as a favour to a couple of people and all my little hammies. A couple of birds that I couldn't save are with them as well.
My backyard is a graveyard.

Just a footnote to people. It is illegal to bury animals on your property, or any property for that matter, so I would always keep it low key that you are doing it. Luckily I have a six foot fence on both sides, so nobody can really tell what I am doing and I try to do it on a day off during the week when everyone around me would be at work.

 

[SQ]

It may be illegal now .... but it didn't used to be ...
There are even people burried in some backyards within the city of Fredericton, of course, they were buried a long time ago.

 

[lilspaz68]

I would like to add, that Vanessa is the one who taught me about the coins and the food for the afterlife. Thanks V, it makes me feel better every time. :thumbup:

 

[Rodentist]

Living in an apartment, I was always afraid to leave them behind if I move....

So I mummify them. Hadrian was my first, and my heart rat. He will be going with me. I need make an appointment with my lawyer to make sure of this. I'm sure he has heard stranger stuff. I hope. They get a cartouche with their name on it in their wrappings as will as a pudgy black haired ushabti to take care of them in the afterlife, and a scarab.

We are looking for a old school card catalog to house them in, but haven't found a suitable one yet.


Hope I haven't creeped out anyone too badly here....I don't often tell many people about my mummified rat collection.

 

[Vanessa]

You haven't creeped me out one bit, I think it is brilliant! They deserve that royal treatment for sure. I don't think I could do it myself, but I think it is excellent.
If I had all the money in the world, I would make them all into wee diamonds. That is actually what I want done with me. Way too expensive, though.
I have always wanted to be cremated, preferably in a shroud and totally on the cheap. Someone better be around to give me my coins or I am coming back to haunt them. But, I could definitely live with being mummified, especially if someone dug me up in a few centuries and put me in a museum. I think that would be cool. As long as I wasn't used like cordwood in someones stove.

 

[Christie]

Eli's three!! But he has been going down hill in the past week mostly due to his tumour gradually taking over his body, he has been dehydrated for the last week and dropping wait wait like mad...both he and I know it is time.

Aww im soo sorry!! :heart: You couldnt get the tumour removed im guessing? i'm really sorry :sad3:

 

[twitch]

being in a apartment i don't have a place to bury them and even at a house that would be mine or a family member's, well they don't stay with the family forever and likes others have said, are eventually at risk of being disturbed. so i have mine cremated and i place them in urns on the mantle peice. i have over 20 up there now plus a cat. some share urns but are all in individual baggies. at the most it ever cost me was $30 once because of a foul up with the vet clinc charging me on top of the crematorium. normally i deal directly with the crematorium and their charge for rats is $10 though i get it for free because i volunteer at a vet clinic. but i have heard it costing hundreds. this is always if you deal with the vet clinic though. they charge their own fees on top of the crematorium. one clinic wanted to charge me $140 to have my rat cremated when i KNEW that the crematorium only charges $10... so if you can deal with the crematorium directly it can be MUCH cheaper.

in any case, for now my rats are on my mantle piece. one day i would like to open up a pet services business and part of that business would be a funeral home. where people can have services just like they can for humans if they want them and there will be a cemetery for them to use as well. when i have that i will bury my babes. i would like to be cremated and buried with them but its illegal to be buried with others though its still done if you have a compassionate organizer. i learned this when we buried my grandmother and wanted to bury her dog and cat with her. we were allowed to do it in the end though he explained it would have to be done last minute and was technically illegal. so i don't think my family would be able to sneak likely well over 50+ little urns in my spot in the ground. so the pet cemetery will have to do. until then its the mantle piece.

 

[benzin.fox]

If anyone has seen my face around this big old forum, they'll know that Audrey Ratburn is the love of my life. She is/was my first rat. After a lifelong battle with myco I made the decision yesterday to have her put to sleep. The vet came over and we both sat on my bedroom floor at the cage and i held her as it happened.It looked so peaceful. I am still crying. Audrey was my best friend. She changed my life completely.The vet did not charge me anything- and it was a sunday.

I had sent my boyfriend who was there when i bought audrey to purchase a craft box that had a wooden frame and was made with glass walls and a little gold closure and hinges. I lined it with new fleece i had bought that week.It was offcuts from the fleece lining their FK. when i bought it i didnt think i'd be burrying audrey in it. I wrapped the fleece around her and positioned her comfortably in it. She would have liked to sleep like that when she was younger.

My family,mum,uncle,his gf and my boyfriend all drove to my grandparents farm about 20 minutes away and dug her grave in the middle of the pet cemetery. She is between the two most famous and loved pets in our family. I am looking online for a granite photo etched gravestone. I think it will help me to feel better about it all.

It took me a long time to physically let go of Audrey afterwards. It was only yesterday and I am still crying. Audrey was my first rat. It's still so difficult to believe I will never see her again.

 

[pinkies_mama]

If I were a rat soul.... I would be bored to death on someone's bookcase, dresser, etc. But that's just me.

First I quote this because I disagree with this ... for Pinkie's case. She was our submissive one in the rat hierarchy and a serious mommy's girl... she was cremated and she is sitting on our bookshelf in the living room, where she can see everyone and everything going on. I feel better knowing she is still here with us, apart of our everyday things.

Her cremation cost us $80. We got her back about a week after her cremation and she has a beautiful stainless steel urn with pink rose engravings. We thought it fit her nicely.

What we were thinking of doing was for every girl that passes, we would write out our memories of her while they are still very fresh, and place that and pictures etc in a scrapbook. That way, we never forget the little things and can always look back though.

Man, its been a month since she passed and I'm still crying. Jeremy still has nightmares about it because she was really suffering at the end and he was holding her, trying to comfort her.

Edit: Reading through this thread more, I can't stop crying. Everyone has such different ideas on what to do, but it makes me feel so much better knowing how much we all care about each and every one of them.

Also, I forgot to add that when Pinkie died, and Jeremy brought her home, I couldn't bare to look at her. He wrapped her in a washcloth (we use that instead of fleece right now) put her in a ziploc and wrapped that in a towel. It took my mother coming over and saying goodbye for me to have the courage to see her, pet her, kiss her, love her, and say goodbye. I'm so glad I did even though it was so hard to do.

I know she is in a much better place and that she is playing with her brothers and sisters I never had the chance to meet.