the cut was INSIDE his ear, it was not an external wound, therefor I'm not sure a band aid would have helped at all. I ended up staying awake all night with him and watching as every time he would shake out the clot it was slowly getting smaller and smaller, but he lost a lot of blood. When i went to bed at 3:00 because I had an exam yesterday I expected to wake up to a dead rat. Now having said that, OP is now perfectly fine and is undergoing a "quarantine" if you will until the wound completely heals, I'm not sure if the wound was caused by his metal wheel (which i can't see being possible as the cut was like i said, inside his ear) or caused by hot shot his cagemate... I'm guessing the latter of the two, BUT heres the problem, i've never EVER seen hot shot show any aggressive tendancies toward OP and the same goes for OP towards hot shot. Anyway, I'm confused and they're both going to be extremely closely monitored upon their reintroduction.
Finally I would like to explain to you as to why I did not take OP to the vet. This whole incident occured at around midnight. Unfortunately I do not have a regular "rat vet" whenever I run into problems I generally go to the small animals vet who knows less than i do about rats, and i have to tell her what i need. Worst than all of that, she doesn't do emergency calls, and even WORST than that, the nearest vet who will treat small animals is over an hour and a half away, I was scared OP wouldn't have made it that long being stressed out in a car. So those are my reasons, I'm sure there is someone who thinks they are irresponsible or selfish or whatever you want to call it, but know this I had OP's best intentions at heart and I balled my ass off going to bed that night thinking I would wake up the next morning, and he wouldn't.