orphaned rats; doing OK..

[Ginevive]

Sunday night, my nursing rat mother started wheezing horribly. She was gasping for air within a few hours, and there was blood coming up from out of her throat. She was also frantically wiping her face with her hands, almost like she was choking.

I do not know what could have done this. I know she was kept by a girl for a few years before I got her last week. The girl used cedar shavings, which I know are volatile for ratties. I wonder if this played a part? The other female rat I got from the same girl, is wheezy.
I had to euthanize the mama rat. I don't know if there as anything that could have been done, but she was bleeding like that and shaking, and I just had to. I used the gas method and then put her body in the freezer. There's a local vet who can do an autopsy for me; I want to know what happened.

The 7 babies are now still with me, and they're actually doing pretty good. They were just barely past the stage where they opened their eyes, and all of them can now drink water out of a shallow dish (a tupperware lid.)
I took the regular rat food blocks that I feed my adults, and moistened them in water so they would be easier for the little guys to eat. I also gave them some of the puffy cereal-type puffs from the rat food mix and they are eating them.
I was going to just wait and see how they did eating the food before going out to buy any kind of formula, but they seem to be fine.
Here are a few pics of them.



Here's the little gray one; seems to be doing the best out of the group.

[Smulkin]

They are almost intolerably cute at that stage - especially when they begin hopping around and wrestling with each other.

I had one baby who has a semi-spherical bald lump sticking up out of its head - not sure what kind of growth it is but I know where your concern stems from in that. Dont want to be feeding any sick or mutant prey to our snakes.

[Marla]

Aww! The little gray one is precious. Good luck with them, and with figuring out what did mama in.

[SatanicIntention]

What may help them along better is, soak some lab blocks in KMR or puppy milk replacer, or even some soy milk. Might give them a little more energy. Or, you can even use iron-free human formula, the soy kind. They do well on that too. One of my friends raised a mouse on the lab blocks soaked in KMR from about a week old, and it is doing awesome now. About a year old, I think.

That little blue baby is adorable, looks russian blue to me. Male or female? Glad they're doing great for you. Good luck with them

[Ginevive]

Thanks for the tip! I think I'll try and get some baby formula today; got a new niece I can "borrow" from.
The rat babies are doing awesome. They are starting to be less clingy; at first they (understandably) would stay huddled in a bunch together. Now they are more apt to spread around the tank and are starting to chew food (i put in some unsoaked stuff too.)

Do you think their teeth are formed enough to enable them to eat the solid foods OK though? It seemed like they were doing a lot more chewing without actually eating the stuff. I put more softened labblocks in there, and they seem to prefer that. They have learned how to drink out of the water bottle too!