Possibly blind Rat and much more! (long read)

[~Fala~]

First off if you don't care for stories and just care about the health of the rat, please scroll down and answer my questions, thanks. Also I'm sure most of you would love pictures, I will get some taken and uploaded as soon as possible, probably this weekend. However I will most likely make a new thread in rat tails and mug shots, might post the ones referring to this thread here depends.

Well I have wanted rats for a long time and have just now talked my parents into getting ONE. My dad only wanted one, my mom agreed with me that there should be two, but my dad would not change his mind. I was planning on adopting from a local rescue, but buy the supplies first...Well my mom and I went shopping yesterday, had a list things to get, ferret.com print out of the FN 142 to get the price match, and started collecting what I had on the list. This is hard to say, but my mom talked me into getting rats there. Saying my dad wouldn't mind if we got two if we kind of forced it on him and she was right, he wasn't mad at all. I feel horrible about this .. but I have already grown fond of them and am not taking them back. =/ I feel like a terrible person because I bought from a pet store when there are so many that need homes but I plan on having my own rescue someday and I also plan on donating to the rescue I was going to adopt from. Although it won't make up, it'll help a little at least.

Anyway. .
When I chose my rats I gave them a secret examination, the pet store employee was one of the people I could tell didn't know much about rats. There were nakie rats, blue self and hooded Rex and black/white self/hooded Dumbo's. I looked at every one of the blue and black ones, no offence to the nakies, just am not interested at this time. I decided on the two healthiest and in the same cage, one was a little thin I thought (still think). We brought them home, I built their FN and got it ready as fast as I could. (they stayed in the box with food, water bottle, and my brother was feeding them apple and a little bit of banana as well) After they settled in slightly I then noticed that Oliver (the black hooded boy) was extremely shy and timid at his new home.

I gave them a bath (just water no shampoo) to get any YN off and anything from the pet store that could have gotten under their nails or in their fur. I think I am allergic to Yesterday’s News, not sure yet though need to handle the rats more. =/ Hopefully I’m not allergic to THEM but something in the cage. I have handled them a little since and haven’t gotten hives. Back to the rats, I made sure I was the one to “save” Oliver from the bath. This got him used to me a bit more and after the bath I could pick him up, now he still is very weary about me and wants to sniff and taste me (the tasting scares me a little as I always think he’s going to bite me, so I move my hand away >.<)

A few questions:

Is there any way you can tell that a rat is blind?

Is it possible for black hooded rats to have red eyes?

He does have white on his face =/ I think I remember reading somewhere that might be bad but forget exactly. Could the white on his face cause the blindness?

Does anyone have experience with blind rats, is there anything I should make sure to do with Oliver to help him get along easier?

My rats are I thought black (with white mixed in), but after the bath I am seeing a tinge of brown. I was a bit concerned about the white hairs, is that normal? Is that a sign of old age?

Is it possible to determine the age of a rat by any physical feature? I don't think these two are that old, especially because they were with 2 other litter mates, but you never know. They are pretty big, can't get out of the FN with it's regular bar spacing.

 I am keeping them in the top section of the FN for now until he familiarizes with the surroundings and can expand. He always seems lost, but following the scents. Food, water, and veggies/fruit/pasta will all be in one location and hopefully that will make things easier.

I am 90 pct sure he is blind or has bad vision, he is like one of  the three blind mice! Then there’s the 10 pct, maybe he is just still scared and trying to get settled or something. Also, it could be his red eyes, I had a gerbil with red/ruby eyes and she would sit there and move back and forth to focus on her surroundings. I don’t see Oliver doing this though, he seems to be blind or bad vision (worse than just having to focus). I was feeding them some cheerios and was trying to guide him to the bowl where I had more cheerios, had to go up a ladder. Well, he got that the ladder was there but then ran right into the bird chew block things hanging down. That was the most recent thing he did and that showed me he couldn’t see too well apparently.

Over all I still feel guilty about buying from a pet store, what’s done is done, I’m not taking them back. They do have social problems, Link who seemed to be doing fine and was able to be handled, well just out of no where when my brother went to pick him up Link bit his finger. (drew a little blood =/) Then poor little Oliver can’t see too well or is very timid and shy. I am willing to face these challenges though, if I take them back they’ll probably be killed is my “best” guess >.< Plus this is only the second day they are here, so I think they are doing great! We chose to handle them, that was a mistake, I am now just going to pet them for a few more days then go back to picking them up. (Duh! I guess I was just so excited I forgot that these guys have to get accustomed to their surroundings first before they can worry about humans trying to pick them up!) I hope once settled in totally some of the bad habits will go away, others I will have to fix, and some of the problems I’ll just have to deal with.

(also would like to mention about the pet store =/ not going to name the store you may or may not be able to guess, but .. While there I bought all the supplies, the rats were waiting to be taken care of. (Rung up/ purchased) The guy that helped us with the supplies was talking to the other employee asking if he could take care of the rats. The other guy was like, “what do you mean by take care of?” That right there made me really happy I was getting those two out of there, mad I was purchasing ANYTHING from that store, and sad that any living creature had to be sold there. Of course I know all about this store, I was being ignorant and I guess I was thinking our stores here were better ..well they’re not! I actually hadn’t seen anything like what I saw that day. I would always look at the animals through the glass but never handle them. I am glad I had the chance to buy rats from a pet store, so I have experience to NEVER do it again. I will be adopting any animal I decide to get in the future! I have gotten a few animals from pet stores in the past but I have never had the chance to go back behind the sense to so speak and look at all the animals. There’s no excuse to buy from a pet store =/ Ignorance is not a good excuse. I feel bad it took actually going through the experience to learn -.- If I were to rewind my life I would have waited until I found the right one rat or talked my dad into 2.. I will probably regret this for a very very long time, but I will still enjoy the experience of helping these poor fellows have a happier, healthier life and teaching them that people aren’t all that bad.

Sorry for it being so long I had a lot of things on my mind, also sorry if you totally hate me for what I did!

For anyone who took the time to read this, THANK YOU very much! If anyone can answer the questions that would be greatly appreciated.

[looneycartoonie]

Well I read all of your post and I don't think that you should beat yourself up over the fact that you got your rats at a petstore. There are many people here who have done the same thing including myself. I think that it might have been the better choice to get 2 from the petstore rather than to get just one from a rescue. Rats are social creatures and despite how much time you think that you can spend with them you shouldn't have a rat all alone. Either way you bought to ratties and so you're part of the rat community. :-)

Anyhow I'll try to answer some of your questions. As far as I know there isn't any sure tell way of knowing if a rat is blind besides the obvious reasons. I can't give you too much info on this since I've never had a blind rat. I have ruby/pink eyed rats that tend to have bad eyesight, but never a blind one. It could be possible to have a blind rat. I know that too much direct sunlight and sometimes stress can deteriorate a rats eyes. Also I don't know about black/white hooded rats, but I have a fawn hooded girl that has ruby eyes. It's pretty easy to tell when you have her in the light though. If your rat has white on it's face then it might not be a hooded. Your best bet would be to take some pics so that we can see your rat. A picture will also help to determine it's age. I wanted to say that the brown patch on your rat could be the result of molting (rats do it all the time), but once again a pic would be very helpful. As far as I know rats don't get white hairs because they age. If anything they're hair might thin out a bit or they might lost a little luster in their fur but that's it. It sounds as though your rats have to be somewhat older because they can't slip between the bars of the FN, but if they were from petsmart then I can't think that they're that old.

Anyhow this forum is full of information and full of great people with tons of experience. I'm sure that you'll get more feedback in time. You can always do a search on trust training or any other topic to help you out with your new guys.

[LastEchoes]

I didnt read your whole post, just skimmed through it so.....

There's not really any way to tell if a rat is blind.....blind rats usually wont jump from place to place though. As for being blind, it doesnt really effect rats. They have bad eye sight anyway and depend mostly on smell/hearing/whisker senses. I've never had a blind rat, but i've had a blind hamster and a blind mouse and I swear you'd never even be able to tell they're blind. They adopt very well to it. The only difference is they wont be big jumpers, but they will still run around, climb and do all the other normal stuff.

And yes, i believe it's possible for black hooded to have red/ruby eyes.

Brown in black/dark rats is normal and usually hows up as they age.

Determining age of a rat once they're full grown is pretty much impossible. How active they are can be somewhat of an indicator but it's not very reliable way to tell age as i've had 2.5 yr old rats that are more active than 4 months old rats.

[~Fala~]

Thank you for your replies! I will post pictures as soon as possible, most likely this weekend. I also have to get them a vet appointment, one of them is showing sign of mites. He scratches pretty often, and wickedrodent (on here) said that cage aggression could be from mites as well. He bit my brother when he went to pick him up and I put my hand in the cage and he lunged at it.  He may never stop being territorial/aggressive but I'll try my best to get him to stop, hopefully he does stop after we get him treated.

I got a better look at one of Oliver's eyes. Only one of them though, he was standing in the light and stood still and let me look as close as I could. lol Well, that eye was not red, but it was not moving at all! It was freaky to look at, I moved my finger in front of it maybe he would follow it, he didn't. I could barely see his pupil, but it was staying exactly in the middle and not moving to look around. Unless that's normal, doesn't look normal to me.. I think he has a muscle problem where he can't move his eye is my best guess, or he is blind. From what you said Looneycartoonie, it could be stress or direct sunlight. His eyes were totally clear though, not cloudy.

edit: Just want to note, I know rats freeze when they see/hear a potential predator. (like most rodents, my gerbils did a lot) Oliver was moving around slightly and still keeping his eye in the same position. His pupil wasn't dialating, his eye wasn't moving in the slightest. When I looked at Linkon's eye it would shift a little bit, his pupils would dialate if I put my finger near his head. There was a slight difference between both of them. I am probably thinking about this too much, I will just go with he has bad eyesight or he is blind. What LastEchoes said most rats have trouble seeing anyway.

[Ratlovingkippy06]

 i have a blind female. she wasn't blind when i got her but health problems caused her problems and she is fully blind. she is on a one level cage for her safety, she was attacked by other rats so she needs to be alone. It is a one level cage because she had problems with ramps and mult level cages so one level with a larfe house with she jumps on, i give her baby food everyday to help with keeping her weight up. sometimes rats with red eyes have poor eye sight, but i wouldn't assume anything.

[Starbuck]

I have one rat who I am only assuming is now completely blind. She is two years old (has a head tilt from an ear infection when she was young), and has cataracts in both eyes. I don't need to do anything special for her, she gets around fine. Her eyes were already ruby (so already poor eyesight). But she runs around with the younger girls without any problem.

We did have a blind, deaf, and very stupid rat once (he was a former labrat), who we did have to take special care of. But a normal rat who is just blind or has even worse eyesight than usual, shouldn't need much if any special attention.

[mamarat2]

Hiya!  First off, welcome to the wonderful world of having rat friends!!   

I work with a local rescue myself and I too have gotten rats from pet stores in the past, very rare that I do these days, but it happens.  Don't feel guilty, you have two new friends now who are no doubt VERY happy to have you.

When you first bring rats home from anywhere its always best to give them some time to get used to their new surrondings, not to say that you shouldn't handle them but they tend to behave in odd ways the first few days or first week.  It also usually takes a good solid week or two to have their "normal" personalities shine thru.  They are so used to the treatment of the pet store employees, which is not always the best, so you need to give them some time to readjust to this new way.

As for your ratter that is biting, he just may need some time to readjust and see that he is sure to be spoiled.  Do a search on trust training and you should come up with some thoughts and ideas here.

Blind rats, I've had a few.  Most of the time rats don't overly rely on their sight as it is since they have very poor sight to begin with.  They are more likely to rely on their hearing and sense of smell.  You may notice them swaying their head back and forth, normal behavior for poor sighted rats, its a depth perception thing to help focus better on what they are looking at.  Unless they are having issues moving about the cage,  I personally would not change anything.

My "specialty" of working with rats in the rescue is behaviorial issues (aggressive ratters, both sexes).  I've kept many that are/were aggressive and with lots of love they have all come around.  I currently still have three that came to me "aggressive" and all are progressing wonderfully!!!

Not sure if you have pm rights to send me pm's yet, but if you want any more information or help please feel free to email me!!  My email is jhuber@vt.edu


Jen

[OldsGal]

I also just wanted to second what mamarat2 said and also add that keep in mind that these rats came from a small tank feeling secure and closed in and cozy.  You have just taken these rats out of that secure tank and thrown them into a Massive Open Cage.  I have experienced this myself first hand with a rat who did not feel safe in a large cage.  He would bite and run from us and over all was not a well adjusted animal.  We had to start him out in a 10gal and then gradually move him up in cage size every few weeks after he started to show signs of improvement.  He is now deceased but by the time he was a few months old we had him living in a nice sized cage with friends and was a very well adjusted rat who never bit or fought with us again. 

I don't typically advocate keeping rats in small cages for any reason at all but it does happen occasionally with rats.  Just remember the cage you bought them is large enough for 12 rats!  That is a lot of space for them to adjust to.

Give them time and definitely keep them in only the top half until they are well adjusted and you feel comfindent that they are going to be OK.

Staci

[Saydrah]

Oldsgal and mamarat2 know what they're talking about! Listen to them Both have lots of experience with squirrely rats that came from bad situations. 

The part I can answer is the red eyes on a black hooded rat. You probably have a black BANDED rat that looks like a hooded, since he has white on his face and red eyes. Are both eyes the same color? Odd-eye is a marking where one eye is pink and the other black or ruby, and happens when there is white on the face.

[Kimmiekins]

My time is limited - we're on our way to the Toledo Humane Society, but I had to pop in to the thread and say: Fala, don't feel guilty! We're understand. Enjoy your babies. Everyone gave good advice, as well!

[~Fala~]

Just want to thank everyone for their wonderful posts! Kimmiekins, I really do hope you find homes for all of the rats! I feel terrible especially for this particular situation. 

Yesterday I was able to get some pictures of my boys, I'll post the one's concerning this thread here. The others, look in rats tails and mug shots!

This is Oliver, Yes he has black all down his back so he isn't hooded!  I didn't know there was such thing as banded so that's probably what he is. In this picture you can see the white on his face and his "red" eyes. His eyes are only red in some pictures and only looked red in a certain lighting. When I was able to look as close as I could they weren't red. I still think he is blind though he doesn't seem like he can see, but that doesn't stop him from climbing all about the cage! He is getting used to me a little, he still tastes me even if I wash my hands right before going near him. He still won't let me pick him up, only after I had given him a bath he let me for like 5 mins but now he went back to squeeking when I try to pick him up. So I will just pet him for the next week and let him settle in totally. I only would have picked him up to move him a level to his food or something, but he wouldn't allow it so I didn't.  )



Then this is Linkon, this picture shows his coloring. Both of them have little white hairs mixed in their black/brown fur. I was wondering if all rats had this or is this a certain type of fur color? Just seemed a bit odd to me. Also from these pictures, is it possible to give an estimate of age? xD If not I'll just go at a little less than a year because they were from a pet store and I don't think they would sit there a whole year with their two other brothers...



edit: Also about the mites, I have to wait until Monday (tomorrow) to call and get a vet appointment. I was thinking of our vet we take our dogs, I was going to call them and ask if they did exotics. However my mom said there was a really good vet clinic not too far from here that had a vet that specialized in small animals. I had forgotten about this vet, so I looked up the number, but it was late by the time I had the number and everything. I will call tomorrow and get an appointment for as soon as I can.

edit 2: OK now I'm thinking Oliver isn't blind and that he was just so acting like it  because of the new environment and everything! Although he is still timid, still squeaks, and some of the things he does look like he is blind. Now I don't think he is but he has definitely changed a bit. Then again like you guys said, rats mainly don't depend on sight and normally don't have that great of eyesight so I think he's quite normal. I am not sure yet though. Another thing, I finally kept my hand near him when he tasted me and he got lighter and lighter each time I put my hand in front of him and has gone down to just a few "tastes" then some licks. He also tries to give me raticures (manicures) silly boy! I hope this continues and once he becomes used to me he'll eventually let me pick him up. Linkon is about the same, he did bite my brother that one time and I'm not sure why. He does let me pick him up but he would rather I didn't so I only do so if I need to.

[windfire]

i hate to say it but most of mine are rescues from petsmart and places over the years. i go in see a baby who is too young to be there and  dang my heart strings pull.  so dont feel bad about them from pet stores.

[Kita]

Welcome!
Don't know that I can help with the 'blind' rat problem, but I can give a good guess about their markings (I was just researching markings to try to determine our new boy's, since I'd never seen markings like his before). The white fur mixed in means they're probably silvered (http://spoiledratten.com/breedingrats5.html - there's a description of silvered rats near the bottom.) As for Oliver's markings...it's hard to say, but he kind of looks like a split cap/stripe to me (I'm probably wrong, though X3) They're adorable, by the way
And don't feel bad about adopting from a pet store. Our first rats came from one and that's where we kept getting them until we found a rescue in our area. The important thing is that they have a good home now with someone to love them.