Presenting: RATL Ping Pong

As of 10/21/06 her health has been excellent.
Update: Ponger had seven stillborn babies on 3/2/07. I felt really bad for her. You could tell she was depressed. She is ok though. I'll try rebreeding her. Hopefully this won't happen a second time.

I'm worried about Ponger. This is March 25th, 2007. She has been in with Ocean for a couple of weeks. She is suppose to have her second litter around April 2nd, but she doesn't look pregnant. So I don't know if she just didn't cycle for a couple of weeks or something else happened. She doesn't look "healthy." She is losing weight. I hope she doesn't have heart disease or something. Maybe there was some internal reason why her babies were born dead. Maybe something is not right with her.

Update: April 19th, 2007. After giving birth Ponger's system was weak and she got a myco infection. I treated it with antibiotics and the swelling in her eye and her running nose improved, but she kept losing weight and I didn't know why. I had had food in for her to eat. Her appetite was good and she grabbed whatever I gave her a dug into like no tomorrow but kept losing weigh. I was thinking cancer or heart disease but she is so young, not even a year old yet.

Today she passed away and I got to examine her more closely, her front teeth were overgrown, even though she had hard things to keep them filed down she wasn't eating it. I realized she wasn't eating the hard stuff and started giving her things that were easier to chew, but didn't realize her teeth were like that. That would explain why she was starving, but there was no way she would have let me file them and she was too ill to take to the vet and have her put under to have them do it as she wouldn't have woken back up. I don't understand why she wasn't chewing the hard stuff. Poor little Ponger. What a sweet little girl.

Note to self: Running a rattery is stressful, a constant learning experience. Ratties are suppose to "brux," to keep their teeth a decent length. I'm so sad about Ponger's death. I've been breeding over five years now and I'm still having unexpected things happen in the process of caring for my fur friends.