Rat Rack Hazard (Graphic images)

Tonight before bed I went to check on all the rodents for food, water, new babies, etc... and also to check on an old breeder male. When I went to open the tub he is in, I heard a squeal from one of the rats and thought maybe the tub pinched someone's tail, which happens occasionally. I closed the tub and heard a squeal, opened it and heard another squeal. With the tub half open, I looked into the tub and saw that the male was stuck by his face somehow near the hardware cloth. I moved the lab block that was hiding his face and was surprised by what I saw. He had somehow gotten his nose and upper teeth stuck through the cloth. He had spun and turned around so much by the time I found him that the wire had cut a full circle into his skin. After spreading the wire apart and manipulating his nose I finally got him freed from the mesh. I've never seen or heard of this before but I thought I'd post it as a caution to everyone using this hardware cloth with rats.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ackhazard1.jpg

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ackhazard2.jpg

OH NO! :O poor guy!!! i sure hope he heals quickly, thanks for the warning.

Weird, we just had this same thing happen to one of our male rats this past weekend. He got his teeth hooked over the hardware cloth. Although with all the screaming he was doing we found him before there was any damage done. Hope yer guy is doing better soon. ;)

Wow, thats crazy. I have never seen anything like that before.

Is he a youngen?

Dang, poor little guy. I hope he gets better, that was your breeder male right? A good breeding male is worth it's weight in gold so I hope that he makes a full recovery for you. They're amazingly resilient little critters so I don't think he'll have too much of a problem.

Ouch! Poor little guy! I hope he gets better quick! Glad you caught it before you went to bed....that could have been so much worse. Thanks for the warning!

What size hardware cloth is that? Is it quarter inch?

Wow, ouch!!!! I have never seen that before in our rat colony. What size is the harware cloth?

Definite ouch. I'll be sure to use smaller hardware cloth when I build my racks.

I hope he pulls through alright. I had a female break a hind leg once. Thankfully, no bones were poking out, but it was nasty swollen for the longest time. She healed up quite nice and has no problems, she's just weaning off the girls of her first litter now ^^

I think I would euthanize/feed off any rat I found with an injury like a broken bone...I wouldn't feel right about not either putting the rat out of pain, or taking it to a vet for proper treatment, and I'm not going to vet a feeder rat, so...

The main concern with the big cut is making sure it doesn't get infected. I guess a bit of dilute betadine could be used, but I imagine they would lick off any antibiotic ointment you tried to put on it.

Wow that's gotta be quite rare.. I would put him in a separate cage and give him some polysporin and he will likely heal up fine. I had a male with a huge bite or cut on his leg worse than that and now he is my best breeder..

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Originally Posted by MonitorLove

Definite ouch. I'll be sure to use smaller hardware cloth when I build my racks.

I hope he pulls through alright. I had a female break a hind leg once. Thankfully, no bones were poking out, but it was nasty swollen for the longest time. She healed up quite nice and has no problems, she's just weaning off the girls of her first litter now ^^

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It may be that it was too small ... I larger opening and the rat wouldn't have gotten stuck. If it was quarter inch this could have been the case.

Like Chris said (m00kfu) ours was weird, he wasn't caught entirely, but he scared himself into thinking he was. He had only begun to scream a bit so I went to the rat room, opened the tub and saw him like that. I moved his body slightly and he got himself off.

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Originally Posted by monitorlove

Definite ouch. I'll be sure to use smaller hardware cloth when I build my racks.

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I don't think this is such hazard to reason using the 1/4" cloth for rats. The 1/4" cloth is incredibly flimsy and pulls apart with ease. It would be NO problem for any rat worth his teeth to chew through in a matter seconds if they wanted to, just like chicken wire. I can cut through 1/4" with a handy pair of scissors. It's not hard to cut or chew through for that matter.

Please, for security reasons stick with the 1/2" hardware cloth for anything larger than a mouse.