rat update

[quietann]

Keturah died in my hands at 3 a.m. It was not a surprise; only once have I seen a rat as sick as she was fight back enough to survive and be OK afterwards.

It's a blow because she was an extra special rat -- gorgeous and friendly. And I had plans for her; in another month I was going to breed her to one of my older boys. The babies would have been fabulous.







So... I have a vet appointment in a little bit to have a blood draw done on one of her cagemates, to test for various evil rat viruses. The vet will also take Keturah's body for a necropsy. I will drop the blood sample off at Charles River Labs in Wilmington, and come home and try to sleep. I slept very badly and can't even think about going into work today.

For those who don't know, there are a couple of rat viruses that can wipe out half the rats in a rattery, or at least do serious damage. The main ones are Sendai and SDA. They are endemic in pet store rats, and carried easily on clothing etc. This is one of the reasons I don't show my rats anymore, and I ask visitors to the rattery to not go to pet stores for at least 4 hours before visiting. I suspect that my rats don't have Sendai or SDA (mostly because I have no idea how they could have been exposed), because there are no more sick ones (other than the usual chronically ill elderly rats), but they may have something else.

Comments

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry about Keturah. My fingers are crossed for the rest of your ratties.

[(Anonymous)]

yes pretty rat :(

[moonpuppy61.livejournal.com]

Sorry that Keturah succumbed to something. Hope it doesn't affect the other rats. Will post a "Not at work today" message to people for you with no further details.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

thanks for doing this. I suspect that some of the coworkers know about the rats, but I just don't talk about them unless asked. (The rats and I have been featured in 4 different newspapers over the years. When I was a student at HSPH, and at UC Irvine before that, professors tended to go "OMG think about your professional reputation!" whenever the rats came up, most other students just took it as more evidence of how weird I was, and the administrative staff thought it was cute and asked me lots of questions.)

[castiron.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that; judging from the picture, she was indeed gorgeous.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

The photo was taken when she was a baby; she got even more pretty as she got older.

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

Oh I am so sorry. This is a little scary.. I get so nervous when I have sick animals that I am clueless about. It's the worst.

Good luck, it's probably an isolated incident.

My Sympathies

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

That's so sad.

[rabbitorf.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear of your loss, she looks very sweet. Good luck with the testing.

[jerkface02.livejournal.com]

aww! i'm so sorry! ): she was a beautiful girl!