Rat in a Box

We've had a really good year at the local farmers' market. The boys have been enjoying berries (much later than usual), watermelon, cucumbers, squash, tomato, green beans, and of course the late-summer favorite: corn.



The corn we got this morning had just been picked, and it was so sweet and juicy it didn't need to be cooked. I was tempted to just put the whole ear in the rat cage to see what they would do, but then I realized if the fights over the corn got ugly, it's a holiday weekend trip to the emergency vet. So, everyone got his own piece.

I wish I had more pictures, but in the time it took me to change the camera batteries, the corn was pretty much gone.

The vet had no trouble seeing them with the skin scrape. Tonight everybody got a dose of Revolution, although only half the boys have scabs at this point.

I'm going to take some of the Carefresh to the vet so he can see if he sees eggs under the microscope. He's curious if these mites are coming in from outside, or if it's an infestation that we always have that is flaring up because the boys are stressed or getting sick. Another thing he asked was if it was possible we had wild rodents in the house.

I'd like to say that was impossible, but earlier this spring, we did indeed have something in our basement ceiling (can't remember if I blogged about that or not.) I thought it was a chipmunk (because we never found anything chewed); Victor thought it was a rat (because the droppings looked very familiar.) Just for kicks, the vet asked me to set our trap (it's the live kind, with a door...when we had it in the basement, we even had a water bottle in it, just in case.)

In the meantime...I am glad I invested in the Waffle Block houses. It's so much easier to snap them apart and scrub them than it is to freeze all the wooden houses like we did in mite infestations past.

...and now I think we have mites.

Aurgh. I just made an appointment to take Russell in tomorrow for a skin scrape, since he's the scabbiest boy, but Cassio, Mosby, and MoonPie are all pretty itchy too. We just noticed the scabs on Russ last night, and I was hoping that somehow they might magically disappear while I was at work today. (I did just give them eggs, I thought. Perhaps it was too much protein?)

Cassio, Mercutio, and MoonPie all have small lumps right now (discovered during last Sunday's whisker-to-tail home checkup), but the vet agreed that we should just keep an eye on them for a little while to see how fast they grow. Larry is on dexamethasone for his persistent wheeze, but he's not requiring frequent rechecks. And I was trying to concentrate on myself: I'm lumpy too, and meet with a surgeon next week to see about removing a mass from my thyroid. I asked the boys to wait 'til I was done before developing any more medical issues, but I suppose I should have done my part and frozen the CareFresh.

The Fluffy Tribe has tagged us on a sci-fi meme.

Copy the list below. Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book. Italicize the ones you’ve watched. Then tag five people to perpetuate the meme.

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds
3. The Lost World: Jurrasic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
7. Cocoon
8. The Stepford Wives (the original, anyway)
9. The Time Machine
10. Starship Troopers
11. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and the tv show, and the BBC radio show)
12. K-PAX
13. 2010
14. The Running Man
15. Sphere
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher
18. Blade Runner
19. Dune
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (The '70's version)
22. The Iron Giant
23. Battlefield Earth
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky
26. Altered States
27. Timeline
28. The Postman
29. Freejack
30. Solaris
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce
35. Deadly Friend
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo
42. The Handmaid’s Tale
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond
46. Nightflyers
47. Watchers
48. Body Snatchers

This was a combination of me and Victor...the rats don't watch much TV, and they tend to eat rather than read books.

We should make a list of rat movies, and turn that into a meme!

R.C.


Larry took his bit and hid.


Oliver

We've been trying to think of events the rats might like...the 50 mm yogie stash, perhaps. Synchronized begging. Team blanket chews?

We were at the beach last week, missing having rats around...



...but watching these guys go after french fries on the boardwalk did seem like yogie time here at home.

...not that we've been posting regularly anyway...

But we are off to the beach for a week. Alas, we have yet to find a vacation rental that welcomes rats (or even the dog), so the animals will be home with a petsitter. I just looked at all of the food I left. They should gain about as much weight as I do.

The boys love cucumbers, and the way they eat them (inside first) cracks me up. I guess the seeds must be the tastiest part.



I tried to get video, but it was too dark in the rat room. Still, you can sort of see the technique.



And here's what's left:



They do eventually eat the skin, too.

Mercutio seems to have mended. He is back to his normal (that is, shy) self, but he's eating and not wheezing, so he went off the antibiotics yesterday. I have no idea what it was that made him so sick, but boy, he really did have me frightened that first night.

I'm not sure if I even mentioned it, but a few weeks ago, Larry had a respiratory flare up, too. His only obvious symptom was very audible grunting...no lethargy, good appetite, stable weight...but the vet did hear congestion in one side of his chest. So Larry's been on nebulized amikacin, but when I talked to the vet yesterday, he decided to pull out the big guns and do a Baytril/doxycycline course instead. He's trying to avoid overusing the Baytril, but in both these cases, it seems necessary.

Other than that, the boys are enjoying the fresh summer produce, like berries, squash, tomatoes, and their favorite: cucumbers.

Mercutio seems to be feeling better...I can hear a nice puff-puff sound when I listen to his chest, and he's acting like himself again.

I tried to get a picture, but after being cooped up in the little cage to be nebulized, he had places to go.



Here we go. Still a lot of porphyrin stains around his neck, but he's looking much better than Monday. (Actually, he's always a bit stained, even when his eyes and nose are completely clear. We refer to him as the rusty rat.)

When I got home from work Monday night, Mercutio wasn't well. I found him sitting alone on the cage floor, breathing shallow, and when I picked him up, he didn't resist me at all. It was too late to actually get him to the vet, but I did talk to the vet by phone, and he told me to go ahead and give Merc Baytril and nebulize him with amikacin. To show how letharic he was, I nebulized him in a box with the opening covered by a towel, and he didn't even try to crawl away.

Most of Monday night, Mercutio just sat on my chest. He wasn't gasping for breath, he just wasn't normal...sort of like Horatio when he got sick. Mer ate a little bit of pudding, but not much, and when I finally put him in the cage for the night, I was afraid he wasn't going to make it.

Tuesday morning he was a little perkier, and when I got home from work Tuesday, he'd eaten some lab blocks. But when I picked him up to check his breathing, he bit me, and at the vet's, he got away from the tech who was weighing him and jumped from the exam table to the floor.

Since this actually wa a great improvement in 24 hours, we decided to stay the course for now with the baytril and amikacin, and last night Mercutio was eating and drinking. He hasn't bitten me again, although I admit when I took him out today I put on gloves (once bitten, twice shy)...but he's still not quite himself. I can't quite explain it.

He's by himself in a separate cage right now, so that I can monitor how much he eats, but tonight I think I'll let him out with his brothers, to see if that makes him feel better.

...but I'm pretty sure they were saying "Where's my supper?!?!"

(Oliver caught grooming.)