[Spider]

My main Rat Chucky is different. Starting this morning he didn't recognize me, they both are usually waiting at the cage door to be let out and I put them under the covers for a half hour before starting breakfast. But Chucky was hiding in the hammock and freightened and hid when brought out. Then I made oatmeal a favorite, but he wasn't interested. He doesn't look in pain or even uncomfortable, just sits with a goofy grin on his face. I tried the absolute favorite(cozy shack rice pudding) and usually Chucky goes nuts but when I put the bowl on the floor of the cage he just stared like he didn't know what to do. Even putting him close didn't help, until I dipped a fingerful and brought it to his mouth did he eat.
Usually the cage is caos, with chasing, wrestling tearing up the towels but he just sits there with this silly grin on his face, I'm going to call the exotic vet in the AM and see whats up. My Mom died of Alzheimers and it was very similar, but this is a 7 month old Rat?
Anybody had experience with brain problems in a Rat? I'm thinking maybe in their horsing around Chucky banged his head on something ?
Anybody got any ideas?
Spider

 

[lilspaz68]

He's only been like this for one day or so?

I would give him a bit more time. Rats often do this freeze up, terrified of the world thing especially when younger. We do not know what they are hearing or smelling, but something frightens them. Even my friendly lovely super-socialized girls would go thru this every once in a while. They were fine the next morning.

Wait and see at this point. I would think brain problems would be a lot similar to PT (pituitary tumour) and I know the symptoms for these, but unless he doesn't snap out of it and you can give me more details "goofy grin" is cute but doesn't help much with diagnosing. :lol:

 

[DonnaK]

Any update? Did you go to the vets or decide to wait a bit?

 

[kancerr]

one of my rats acts like that 90% of the time. ill take her out of the cage one day and shell be fine, ill take her out another and shell go to the bathroom all over and try to run/jump away. or shell be fine for a while then go nutso. she has cancer dunno if thats why she acts like that or what. i would def get em checked out as soon as possible though.(i did it too late ;[ never make that mistake again)

 

[Spider]

He woke up his old self. Rats are the strangest people! The night before he was terrified of something,slowly searching every inch of the cage , then hiding upstairs. He looked glassyeyed, like he was grinning. I realized he hadn't had water all day so I unhooked the bottle and put it right next to his mouth, finally it was like " oh yeahI'm thirsty!" and drank nonstop for 5 minutes. It just seemed like the soul of the Rat was undergoing something. Even though I sensed something, he seemed healthy and aware, He was acting like how a Rat does when a real, real close buddy dies, at least to me. I've seen stories on the forum and pictures of surviving Rats and those EYES looked like that, like he didn't want to go on or know what to do.
But now he's his old self and I recieved the " SeaCure for Pets" supplement 2 days ago and I've been having good results so far. I will start a seperate thread on this topic.
Sorry for the false alarm, and thanks for the concern.
Spider

 

[DonnaK]

Glad to hear he's back to his old self. Let's hope he stays that way!