Rattitude

EDIT While I was writing the post below, Ezri passed.  I went to check on her and she was gone

Got home last night and Ezri had abandoned her sisters to lay in a corner of the bottom of their cage….alone.

In my experience, this does not bode well for an old rat.

I moved her to the aquarium I usually put the girls in when I’m cleaning their cage, and she is alone right now, sleeping A LOT.  She did eat some green beans when I gave her some last night, and is drinking a little.

She’s also biting at the air, chewing on the bedding, and nipped at me when I tried to pull a wad of bedding out of her mouth this morning (right before I took these pictures.

My poor old lady, Ezri, is feeling her age.

I’m trying to get pregnant.

What does that have to do with pet rats?

Well, a lady I work with recently asked me, in all seriousness, “So, you’re going to get rid of you rats, right?”

When I told hubby he said, “Does she think we should get rid of the dogs too?”

I just asked the girl, “What does my baby have to do with my rats?  What could my rats POSSIBLY do to hurt my baby?”

I mean, I know there are horror stories of poor people in squalid condition who have had their infants nibbled on by wild rats. But those rats are wild, and living in the same squalid conditions as the people.  My rats are fat, sassy and PETS for crying out loud.

Rattie prejiduce is everywhere.

Sure, I’m going to get rid of all my furry babies just becuase I have a human baby, because they are soooooooo replaceable! 

NOT!

My children are not going to be raised with such prejudice.

I mean, I’m not going to be putting my girls in the newborns crib.  However, as soon as he or she is old enough to be considered a human (just a joke there) I’m going to introduce him/her to the rats, as they are members of the household just like the dogs.

Meanwhile, he’s far from babyhood, but here is a couple of pictures of my Nephew Jon with a couple of my girls.

In this first one he has One of Two on his shoulder.

And in this next one he’s cuddling with Ezri.

Rats are one of the top animals tested on for medical experiments.  I’ve always been torn by this knowledge.

Part of me realizes its necessary.  That modern medicine gets better in leaps and bounds by this experimentation.

A bigger part of me is horrified.  Horrible, horrible HORRIBLE things are done to these animals in the name of science. 

Some of it is cosmetic science as opposed to medical science.  That’s even worse.

While the possibility of finding a cure or better treatment for painful and life threatening diseases might be worth some experimentation, the better quality of your makeup is not worth a rats pain and suffering.  Its just not.

So I’m not 100% for animal testing, nor am I 100% against it, but I am 110% for them trying to lessen the cruelty a little.  Its not necessary to grow an ear out of a rats back, its not necessary to kill baby chickens to study whether they possibly used to be dinosaurs (saw that one on the discovery channel), its not nessary to spray hairspray or perfume in an animals face to see if it might hurt some.  Its NOT!

If you want to buy things that are not tested on animals, visit Caring Consumer and do a search or two.

Here is the video that made me start writing this blog entry:

But, if you still dont care one way or another what happens to the poor rats, remember that animal testing is done on more “socially acceptable” animals as well.  Bunnies, monkey, even cats and dogs and more are tested on.

I logged on to my gmail today to see that one of my answers at Yahoo! Answers had been chosen as best answer.

The question had been:

Can mites from a hamster go onto a human?
I have two hamsters (ruswsian dwarf) that both hgave mites (as i was told by the vet) can they spread to me. Please leave pics an info

My answer was:

Yes, they can. I’ve had mites on my rats before. The small red ones. They also got into my clothes, and bit me mostly around the waistband of my jeans and in my socks.

Find out where they came from. Sometimes mites can come in on their bedding or in their food! If they came from either of those sources then FREEZE THE SOURCE. The intense cold should kill off any remaining mites and keep them from coming back.

I was voted best answer, mainly because the only other answer was:

yea
a bomb those things, they are bad news bears

What really got me was that while I was chosen best answer I was given one star and the comment that:

Diddnt help very much sorry

My god!  What else could I have said?

Granted, they asked for pictures, but I couldn’t find a good picture of rodent mites, or particularly rodent mites on human skin.  But I thought I answered their query of “can they spread to me”.  It doesn’t get much more clear than my first sentence, YES THEY CAN!