dominant rats don't get sick (mostly)

So thanks to the "plague" I now have many fewer rats in each cage, and four-soon-to-be-five solitary rats. All five of the "loners" were the dominant rat in their cage. Two of them did get sick but are maintaining on Baytril reasonably well.

No dominant rats died.

All these solitary rats do create a problem for me; because they are dominant, introducing them to each other would be very unlikely to work. The one time I tried, the fur was flying within seconds. I have 14 cages, of which one is empty, five have these guys, and the rest have two or more rats.

OTOH with fewer rats I don't have to be quite as strict about weekly cage cleaning...

to make myself feel better

Yummy vegetables in a thick, tomato-based soup, from the cafeteria. According to the little sign by the kettle, it's really healthy, too!

The vegetables include green beans, yellow summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, yellow wax beans, carrots, and onions. The only one I'd object to is carrots, which I prefer raw.

And oyster crackers! (They are OU kosher and parve, and don't have oysters, obviously. Does anyone know why these are called oyster crackers?)

/must learn how to make soup like this. And share it with friends, because Ben won't eat it.