Tomorrow morning my rat is getting bottom surgery.
Earlier this year we got three pet rats for my little cousin. Her mother and father aren’t in her life anymore and so she lives with me. I thought that getting a pet together would be a good thing for her to focus on, so we did our research, saved up and earlier in the year we brought home 3 baby boy rats.
Now she is the best rat parent ever. She spends hours sitting with them every day. She prepares their foods and spot cleans daily. She loves her rats more than anything, but she does have a favourite. She loves Bruno and Potato dearly, but by far Patches is her best friend. He bonded with her almost immediately and she talks about him almost constantly.
Well, Patches got a little cough. We took him to the vet and the got a glowing review. Apart from a respiratory infection (that was handled with antibiotics) the vet said he was a beautiful and well natured little boy.
We gave him the medicine and Patches got better. Better than better, Patches was thriving! He grew bigger faster than both his brothers to the point of maybe being a little too big. And then definitely more than a little too big.
Patches gave birth to 11 healthy babies. Which, being a boy rat was a king behaviour. We separated the babies and Mr. Patches immediately (luckily our cage is big enough that it can be separated easily in the middle) and called the breeder who was, understandably, in shock.
They had been sure that Patches was a male. He had looked male. I’d checked myself and yes he did appear to have testicles. Even the vet with her years of training had thought that he was a male. It said so on his vet profile and everything. The best guess is hormonal swelling, or even that patches may be intersex.
The breeder apologised, agreed to find homes for the babies, and even swap Patches for another more suitable rat, but this couldn’t do. This didn’t matter to my cousin. Mr. Patches is her best friend in the world. She loves him. She said he’s the friendliest rat in the world and is the best dad too. The choice was easy.
So tomorrow our pet rat is getting bottom surgery.
Desexing also has benefits such as reducing the risk of certain cancers, but most importantly it will allow Patches to safely rejoin Bruno and Potato.
The moral of the story is that even seemingly cheap and easy to acquire pets can have very unexpected and expensive challenges, and even if you think you’ve done all your research even experts (like the breeder and vet) can be thrown curve balls sometimes. While it’s impossible to know what problems could arise you should really think about whether or not you might have the time and budget to be able to deal with them if they should come to pass.
Oh and trans rat rights 🏳️⚧️ 🐀 ⬇️
dededos
prguitarman
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