Many many years ago, the rat mills in my area sold pretty blazed, striking rats…you could recognize a Petsmart rat so quickly. I guess the mills finally realized that a lot of the young pups died before they could be of any financial gain to them. They started breeding pearl merles, etc, and now mink is the most common colour for rats in petstores now.
But recently there has been a resurgence of these blazed rats in the area. I think there’s a new Mill that’s opened up and a lot of the BYB’s are breeding them because everyone still wants those “pretty rats”.
Megacolon was a rare thing here in Ontario and most pet owners had never heard of it. Sadly in the last couple of years there have been more and more of them, and more and more rats suffering and dying from this wretched genetic condition.
I recently took in 9 male rats from someone who was going to have them killed the next day. Imagine my surprise when I find fawns and beige hoodies, and 1 black capped, lightning blazed boy who is smaller than the rest. He was sleek, and happy and healthy just smaller. Last week he had some soft stool issues, but these ended up resolving. I was going to take him to my vet for a look-see/feel and possibly tests for internal parasites but Chao’s fickle butt stopped producing.
Last night I came home from picking up my 2 boys after their neuter and found Chaos with a large squishy malformed poop hanging out of his butt. I had to gently help him pass that. I palpated his belly and found a hard lump in the central part of his gut. This morning I woke up and found even more lumps that you could now see with the naked eye. I called my vet, rushed him in and he was examined. We concluded it wasn’t a mild case that might respond to a special diet, enemas, and laxatives. He was humanely put to sleep.
Chaos was only 4 months old, which is early for late onset. He was a friendly, playful, wonderful character. He was just like his Daddy who I am in love with. I am so sorry I didn’t get to know the wonderful special boy he was going to be. He would’ve been one of my own Specials.
Chaos, you were named that because I had a feeling you would be causing me a lot of chaos in my life and in my heart and I was right. I really hope there’s a lot of yummy things where you are that don’t cause you any pain. I miss you tremendously even though I only knew you for 16 days.
Love you,
Mom.
When they arrived, all the boys were shy and nervous, not understanding what was going on. Most of them hid and ran. Chaos ran and explored instead.
The next day they all decided they liked this whole new life and they came out of their shell (like night and day), especially my little fellow …he was calm and sweet from the start.
Happy with his Dad and brothers a few days ago
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