[Burdiepie]

i need help. we have scoured the internet trying to figure out what happened to our girls.
a while back one of our girl rats died. it was VERY sudden, i was cleaning their cage and one minute she was crawling around by my feet just fine, then the next she was laying limp on the ground. she seemed like she was choking, it was very fast. she had he mouth open and was kind of gasping but no air coming in or out, it was making kind of a clicking noise. then she was gone. i was so upset, and i thought that even though it is rare for rats to choke and die from it, that that was what had happened.
today the same thing happened to another one, almost exactly the same way. one second she was fine, the next she was limp, then gasping, then gone.

can anyone explain this or have any idea what it could have been? we ruled out the possibility that they ate something poisonous because they spend alot of time running around and theyve been over every inch of that room dozens of times.

 

[amandahoney]

i'm sorry for your loss. were the girls related? this is just a guess, but the cause could have been neurological- a stroke or a tumor on the brain, perhaps. if they were sisters, maybe they developed the same thing around the same time? if you can't find an environmental cause and it was a sudden death, maybe it could be neurological. as for that clicking noise, i've had two rats die literally in my arms, and both made that same noise. one died from either a stroke or a pituitary tumor, we couldn't tell which, and one of old age. i don't know what it is, but if we're talking about the same noise, it doesn't mean choking.

i hope you discover what caused this and find some peace of mind.

 

[DonnaK]

I'm sorry for your loss

Can you give us a little more detail about the rats? How old were they? Were they related? Had they been ill in the past? Had you changed anything recently?

 

[lilspaz68]

Could've been a heart attack as well.

 

[chrisstrikeagain]

im very sorry for that. yeah, hopefully you'll find out why. give more details and im sure we can throw some guesses in the air. it might have been a stroke. was the body stuck in a weird position?

 

[OnlyOno]

the clicking is a normal sound that they make when their dying, it's just their throat muscles and bones moving around quickly as their body dies but their brain keeps trying to breathe. it's happened to a lot of hamsters i've had and rabbits too. i would say sounded like a heart attack or a stroke... i'm so sorry to hear about that, it seems so sudden i'm sure you felt helpless, but it was good that it was just as quick for your rats.

 

[Burdiepie]

thank you all for your responses and sympathy.

to answer your question yes they were related. one was the mother, the other her daughter. it does make sense that it would be a stroke or heart attack, although i guess it just seemed weird that they both happened when the girls were out and running around. they both died in my arms as well.

i did feel helpless, i wanted to help them but didnt know how. i was glad they didnt have to suffer though.

 

[Burdiepie]

also no their bodies were not stuck in a weird position, they were both pretty limp, although the one who died today when i set her on the floor she tried to walk but couldnt.

i have a rat who is not related to them who has had a stroke i am sure because she does this thing where she twists her body to the left and will flip over and over, mostly when i hold her, she didnt used to do it. shes ok walking but you can tell something is wrong with her, although it doesnt dampen her spirits any.

 

[lilspaz68]

a rat that has had a stroke will recover over time to near normality even without treatment (abs and steroids) or they die quite quickly if the stroke is severe. Is it possibly your roller has head tilt? Maybe an inner ear infection?

 

[Burdiepie]

yea she does have a head tilt. i suppose it could be an inner ear infection, but she has been this way for maybe 4 months now.

 

[Tammy]

How tragic to lose 2 ratties in such a quick and horrible way...sorry for your loss.

Somewhere on the web, I stumbled across a story of related rats dying from anaphylactic shock...the rats ate something they were allergic to. Your rats, just like the rats in the story, quickly died from suffocation because their throats swelled up. The author figured out it was a genetic, but not common, condition. Unfortunately, I don't remember what they ate!