Sad news, etc

Woke up this morning and after my usual slow, grinding warm-up went downstairs and decided to feed the ratses. As usual, they went a bit loopy after I switched on the light, I dug out some food for them and opened the cage. Had to do some wrangling to keep them in (they are very keen to explore new frontiers) and was doing a headcount when I noticed that Vulcan wasn't up. I then spotted him laid out on the floor of the cage. He'd passed on:

Never could get a very good picture of him. We got him as part of a trio of brothers - himself, Havok and Nightcrawler. From the very start they were absolutely terrified of us and we struggled to get them used to us. Nightcrawler got there reasonably quickly but Havok and Vulcan were always still very wary of us.

The pair of them had continual problems with their chests due to the scourge of boyrats - myco. This is a bug that is normally resident and operates as an opportunistic infection. That is, when weakened by other things it takes hold and causes respiratory problems. I think the pair of them were always a bit stressed or not particularly forceful about getting food as they were often underweight and weakened by the bug. A little while ago they both came down terribly with it and we had to put them in a seperate convalesence cage to try to recover. Unfortunately this is where we lost Havok.

Happily, Vulcan pulled through and (though weak) seemed to be doing ok. By this point he was fine with being handled and I continued to work with him, giving him extra attention and treats and things. He'd finally become quite inquisitive and totally tame. He could climb and explore perfectly well, he was just a bit slow and continued to be pretty bony and weak. However, he was basically doing as well as I'd ever hoped.

A couple of days ago I found him in his Savic bed (a sort of hanging plastic orb from the top of the cage) and noticed he was unusually unresponsive - he'd normally at least have a rummage around if I was buggering about in the cage. I pulled him out and he was pretty much kaput. He barely responded to being handled and just lay there looking tragic. I took him upstairs to bed and Fran looked after him for a while, kept him warm and tried to comfort him.

After half an hour or so he came around and began exploring. Same as before, seemed weak but basically fine. I had hoped that he was now going to recover fully but I knew it wasn't particularly likely.

I do hope we managed to get him vaguely happy and comfortable for his last days, and I'm sure we gave him a better life than most domestic rats. From the start it was obvious he was never going to do all that well but I never really gave up hope. I'm glad he went in the company of his ratfriends.