TRIGGER WARNING:This post is not a happy one.
Patch is not doing well. At about 10pm last light we noticed that he tried to jump up a level in his pen and couldn’t make it. His front end was on the second level, but his back half was hanging off the edge. He couldn’t move his back legs. He was paralysed. I knew he didn’t have long to go.
In the morning I transferred the rats into a smaller, single storey cage.
Mushroom could predict what was going to happen. He always started at me saying “Please get me out of here, I don’t like it.” But I couldn’t do anything about it. And, just like rabbits, it’s better for them to stay with their partner to be able to say goodbye.
I didn’t want Patch to suffer, but I didn’t know what to do.
Then it happened, it was around 11:30am the 2nd of January when I noticed Patch was writhing around and finding it hard to breathe. I picked him up and put him carefully on a soft blanket. He looked at me with bulgy eyes and wrapped his little hand around my finger. It was about 5 seconds later that he passed away.
Not for the faint of heart
Patch exploded. The night before, he had been chewing on his back legs and tail, which meant he was in severe pain and he wanted to remove them. It was gross.
“Go with the wind, sweet Patch”
I said
And he was gone.
These photos were taken the day before he passed away.
The next thing I had to do was find away to bury him. It’s against the law to bury rats in backyards, without being put in a plastic container first. But because I am renting, I didn’t want to dig a hole and leave him there for someone else to find in the future. So I chose to, as disgusting as the thought was, put him in the garbage wrapped in a blanket and in a plastic bag. I didn’t have a choice. What else could I do?
I then spent a couple of hours disinfecting and cleaning everything.
I put mushy in my green bucket with a clean blanket and a flattened cage grid on top. He didn’t like it in there, but he was safe.
I then had the gross job of washing the cage.
Now my focus turned to Mushy.
The strange thing about Mushy was that he didn’t miss Patch. He wasn’t mourning him. He was actually happier. His behaviour was like he was relieved to have that saga come to an end. He started to boggle and brux, which he had never done before. Another thing that changed was the amount he piddled everywhere. Wow, every 2 seconds more piddle. I couldn’t hold him for long because he would piddle on me… a lot…