A former member of the forum really really wanted a siamese male and put up an ad asking anyone if they had one. A woman responded and said she was breeding them and to come get them. She was getting out of breeding rats so just wanted them gone. The woman went to the faraway farm and the husband told her to “take as many as you want’ and told her where to find them. She went off in the dark and cold night of October 16th and found the cage of rats outside of a shed, with a blanket over it and an igloo as shelter. It was a windy and cold 50 F!! She heard other animals but managed to get a hold of the older male. She got home and when prompted then told the forum the situation in Sombra, Ontario. We arranged a pickup, transport, transport then transport to me any males. There was supposed to be 5 left but who knew because the rats would slip out of the bar spacing and the hunting dogs she also bred would kill them.
So our transporter went out and found only 3 left. The woman said they were all girls and the boys had “disappeared”.
Then Stacey went and picked up from her, then there was a meet up with another transporter and that’s where the discovery was that it was 2 boys and a pregnant sister. The sister stayed at the rescue, and had her babies the next day, and the 2 boys came directly to me.
They were young and very very spooky.
I named the younger one Tyr
and the bigger fellow Bjorn
These big boys were terrified of the world, and I had them in with another young boy and his elderly little auntie Pocky (last of the Sugarbabies)…she protected her “babies”.
The 2 brothers loved each other at least
After Pocky passed, they lost all their confidence again and really needed friends that didn’t terrify them. So I tried them with gentle Zeus and his nice son Hermes.
Unfortunately they were so terrified of me and even other rats that they became known as the Spooky Smeezies, or the Screamers for short. I would wake up and bolt for their cage at least twice a night to make sure no one was dying. It sure sounded like they were.
My first lick from Bjorn was 5 months after he arrived.
Hermes was considered terrifying until I tried to bring in an old lonely man named Ferdinand in the group.
After that Hermes was not scary anymore and the boys settled down and finally stopped screaming all the time. *whew*
Not long ago the boys were doing really well, letting me pick them up without too much stress etc…we were finally rounding the corner…15 months after they arrived. LOL
But then this weekend Bjorn showed very definitive symptoms of PT, and even though he had a mild URI, I finally had a rat young enough to try the bromocriptine on. I gave him dexamethasone to tide him over until the bromocriptine became effective but sadly he didn’t respond. I was getting niggling feelings of something else was wrong, when this morning we had something different occur and I rushed my sweet boy to the vet to be pts.
Poor Bjorn, I was hoping we would get that special reprieve and he would’ve been with us for months more, but it was not to be.
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