maybe i should call her chomper...

why momma rat, why?! why must you eat my finger? i only want to give you your dewormer paste! yum!

yeah, sometimes the mommas are a little nippy when they have a pile of beebies and you reach into their tub, but ouch! i was on a roll too--had about 15 or so down--grab, squirt, back into tub, grab, squirt, back into tub, gra...aaaagh!

i love my ratties. :rat: :rolleyes:

LOL I swear I worry more about getting nipped by one of the ratties than I ever do by big old 5 foot long Brannagh the BP! Haven't had a rat bite in awhile *knock wood* but man they hurt and can get infected fast if you don't stay on top of them.

Do you de-worm yours as a matter of course? Luckily, the girls kick and squirm for their antibiotics, but it hasn't occured to them to chomp down on me yet!

for my sake i'd rather be bitten by one of my snakes, but for the sake of the biter i'd rather be bitten by a rat (no change of them really pulling a tooth or hurting themselves). my rats are all usually very sweet, but a few of them get a bit fiesty when they have babies. can't really blame them--they might bite a lot harder if they knew what my intentions were for those babies... :O

I have 2 rats that consistently try to bite me and mostly succeed. I guess its because I have huge hands and it must scare them. Once they are out they are fine.

yeah, my girls are all fine once they are out but it's the reaching into the tub with them while they have a litter they don't like so much.

luckily i don't have huge scary hairy hands...

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Originally Posted by mlededee

yeah, my girls are all fine once they are out but it's the reaching into the tub with them while they have a litter they don't like so much.

luckily i don't have huge scary hairy hands...

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True enough...We have 4 litters right now and another one on the way. Unfortunately we lost a girl during labor the other day. Very sad.

aw, i'm sorry to hear that. were you able to save any of the pups?

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Originally Posted by mlededee

aw, i'm sorry to hear that. were you able to save any of the pups?

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No..She never delivered any. It was my first pregnant female I experienced a problem with. She started to bleed lightly like all do at the beginning of pregnancy and then no babies. She was huge. I wasn't sure whether she would eventually have them or not. I did what I could to make her comfortable. It was pretty sad. Anything else I could have done for the future?

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Do you de-worm yours as a matter of course? Luckily, the girls kick and squirm for their antibiotics, but it hasn't occured to them to chomp down on me yet!

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i had been considering deworming them for a while, just as a preventative, and then i noticed what looked like lice nits on one of them. never saw any actual lice or nits or anything on any of the others but that was enough for me to decide to go ahead and treat them all.

i'm using ivermectin horse dewormer that i picked up at my local feed store. i was giving them 3 doses, one per week for 3 weeks, but becky advised that that wasn't the most effective, so i am now dosing them once per day for 3 weeks (a dose is just about the size of an uncooked grain of rice for an adult, slightly less for juvenilles). i am using a very small oral syringe (no needle) and just squirt out the right amount into each rat's mouth.