I have a very sick rat, she normaly carries a fine weight and good energetic, happy, friendly temperment.
Formerly we kept her and our male, whom she had a happy relationship with, in a large aquarium. Recently, we purchaced a beauitful wire rat cage, and moved her and the male into that.
We have another female seems to have some serious mental issues, she is anti-social and mean with other rats. She has hyper active tendencys and is not very fun to hold because she freaks out so much. She is also seems to be blind in one eye (I don't know how it was caused)
We placed her with the female and the male in the new cage to see if the male could straighten her out so she would'nt have to be alone anymore (we kept her seperated because of former conflicts with the sick female).
I fear she may have now deeply shocked or sickened my other rat. The first day in the cage she was aggressive, and took over the lowest level of the cage and the house that sits there. The other two rats kept to the higher levels.
We gave her another day, to give her just a little bit of a chance, then removed her again.
The male is doing fine still, he has a shiney coat with bright eyes. He sleeps normally and often trys to play with the girl, he's eating and drinking like he should as well.
Our female however, is not doing so well.
She has had increasing weightloss, with prominate hip, and rib bones. The base of her tail is also looking rather poor.
Her coat is dingy, and unkept, and her eyes appear to be stressed and sunken.
She sleeps all day in a tightly curled up position (she used to sleep relaxed and layed out before). She seems to either be breating heavly, or hyper-ventilating.
Today I gave her a brief soak in a shallow bowl of warm water and tryed to get her to eat. She nibbled on a little bit of cold fruit then refused it, not eating or drinking. I have been regularly offering her bits bread, sunflower seed, carrot, and a mized nut rat treat. As well as water
I noticed today that she also had blood around her nostrils, and her coat has started to fall out.
She also carries a bad smell, I'm guessing from her lack of grooming.
PLEASE tell me if theres even the slightest chance of saving her. Any ideas are welcome, my little brothers are also very attached to her and I would hate to see her die.
