Chenoa was my little darling bird girl. She was originally with an owner who kept her alone. She lived with him the first months of her life until his landlord installed those electronic rodent repellers and poor Bird went nuts not able to escape the frequent subsonic changes. She ended up rolling, and retching and falling down. The guy put her in her cage in his backyard for a week, and she slowly recovered. His friend had always wanted a rat, and said he would take her. He put her in a literal bird cage with perches and a small bird’s nest at least. But she nipped him once and he was terrified of her, so he said she had to go, because his roommate had "allergies". And once again he posted for a home, on another mostly U.S. forum where I don’t expect to see any rats in my neck of the woods…hehehe.
So I met the guy at a subway station. I had to move her into a carrier, and he warned me that she might bite me…she hopped across the perches, and I opened the door and pulled her out. I looked at her teeny minky face and couldn’t resist…and kissed her right on the mouth, then on her cheeks (she looked incredibly bemused)…then tucked the lovely tiny thing under my chin.
So Bird got another bird name (Chenoa is native American for “bird of peace”) but a much more suitable one, and Chenoa’s new life began.
She was about 7 months old when I got her, and a sweet little lady. She had the irish marking on her chest which was endearing, and I ended up introducing her to Goliath and his ladies where she fit in well. She was active and lean and sweet.
Then 4 months ago, my sweet girl stopped being active, her coat got dull, she hung her head to breathe, she lost sooo much weight and was breathing through her abdomen.
I started her on enalapril and lasix and she responded. Poor Chenoa had CHF at 13 months old :(
We got her stabilized through some ups and downs, but eventually tiny frail Chenoa told me unmistakeably that SHE was not going to live with Goli’s gang anymore…that she would be living in her Penthouse (hospital cage) on top of the Baby Swarm FN. The door was always left open, unless rats were out that would hurt her. Her joy in life was taunting other rats but sadly her joy became her end. :(
Last night, I went into my bedroom to find Chenoa bleeding on my pillow waiting for me…she had a bad toe bite but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She was acting very weak and floppy, but some rats will do that when they are injured and are just fine. I put her back in her cage and she had a drink of water and lay down. I woke up at 3 am with her cuddled up against the side of my head…I gave her a kiss and some strokes, and saw she was bleeding a little bit more, probably from the journey down the FN and across to my bed. I sleepily decided there was no point putting her back in her cage if she wanted to be with me, and would only re-injure herself to get back. So I left her. I woke up in the morning and she was elsewhere. I have been waiting for her to come out all day. I thought she was recovering from her injury by sleeping it off like a lot of rats do. I was wrong. I found her on the floor beside my bed table a few hours ago. I keep hoping that she knew it was coming and came to say goodbye, not that I screwed up and didn’t think of giving her fluids because of the loss of blood volume, etc.
Sigh...she will be missed.
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