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I take care of a small 'herd' of rats for a friend (her girls are allergic to dog and cat dander, so they have rats). I've been caring for them for about....4 years now, and the cast of characters has changed through the years. Recently, one of the rats had to be put down due to a tumor on her abdomen that wound up getting infected (likely from rubbing on the bedding as she moved around).
When I started the first of a few multi-day routines on Friday, her sister had two very big and nasty tumors on her chest area. They had clearly been growing for awhile, and were at the 'holy shit these things have their own visible blood supply' stage. Probably about ping-pong-ball size (I was never able to determine if the friend had ever taken her to the vet when they first found it). That evening, one of the tumors broke open and bled a little bit, but it stopped and I kept a very close eye on her until I had to leave (the instructions I got said to take her out of the cage to feed her Ensure, but I was concerned about what any handling would do to the tumor so managed to do it with her in the cage).
Saturday morning, mom and I found her dead
I'm not sure exactly what happened, but we think that her trying to move around with those things (also probably her generally being handled by her owner no matter how gently) just finally caused one to burst. Of course I called the friend immediately and told her; she wasn't too shocked at the news, more that it happened so quickly and apologetic that I had to be the one to find her.
One of the males also has a tumor on his front leg that seemed to nearly double in size in 24 hours; I did leave a note suggesting that they take him to a vet and get it looked at. It's about gumball size, and I'm concerned about it (movement might cause it to rupture) being that it is on a joint.
Part of me (and mom) is thinking 'why didn't they take the rat to a vet as soon as they discovered the tumor?' All their rats are rescue rats, so some may have underlying problems that make them prone to that sort of thing.
When I started the first of a few multi-day routines on Friday, her sister had two very big and nasty tumors on her chest area. They had clearly been growing for awhile, and were at the 'holy shit these things have their own visible blood supply' stage. Probably about ping-pong-ball size (I was never able to determine if the friend had ever taken her to the vet when they first found it). That evening, one of the tumors broke open and bled a little bit, but it stopped and I kept a very close eye on her until I had to leave (the instructions I got said to take her out of the cage to feed her Ensure, but I was concerned about what any handling would do to the tumor so managed to do it with her in the cage).
Saturday morning, mom and I found her dead
I'm not sure exactly what happened, but we think that her trying to move around with those things (also probably her generally being handled by her owner no matter how gently) just finally caused one to burst. Of course I called the friend immediately and told her; she wasn't too shocked at the news, more that it happened so quickly and apologetic that I had to be the one to find her.One of the males also has a tumor on his front leg that seemed to nearly double in size in 24 hours; I did leave a note suggesting that they take him to a vet and get it looked at. It's about gumball size, and I'm concerned about it (movement might cause it to rupture) being that it is on a joint.
Part of me (and mom) is thinking 'why didn't they take the rat to a vet as soon as they discovered the tumor?' All their rats are rescue rats, so some may have underlying problems that make them prone to that sort of thing.
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