Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / September 2007

Another easier to read site - http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/apples.asp

If apple pips were poisonous, I'm afraid there would be an awful lot of
little rodentine bodies strewn around the windfalls under our tree :-(

(And a few humans as well, I suppose, since the cores are the setting
agent in blackberry-and-apple and crab-apple jelly...)

I thought it was prussic acid in peach stones? The sinister 'scent of
bitter almonds' that features in more than one Golden Age locked-room
mystery :-)

Not that the rats ever manage to get into them;  they just like cleaning
off the flesh and juice that stick to the outside. Funny, as they're
quite good at getting into nuts. Perhaps the ridged surface of the stone
is a defence against the depredations of rats and mice...

[snip]

Well, it's been two days and she hasn't done it again (yet...) She
doesn't look to me altogether as lively as she ought to, her eyes are
slitted a bit and her breathing seems a bit emphatic at times (she was
almost bouncing on her tail while sitting up to eat this evening), but
she hasn't actually been choking just yet.

I'll keep a good eye on her and hope that it was just some
intermittent object taking several days to clear properly; or
alternatively that she presents some definite symptoms that I can take
back to the vet and point out!

Edit: I spoke too soon -- I leave the room for five minutes and she's at
it again right now :-(  Not seriously in distress this time, but
standing with her mouth open, gasping...

Now Annabel has come up and started giving apparent mouth-to-mouth
respiration(!) She has never shown the slightest sympathy before... oh,
she has simply nipped something right out of Natalie's mouth and eaten
it :-p  Presumably whatever it was that was causing the problem, as
Natalie has now gone into the licking-her-lips-and-swallowing phase, and
is looking a bit tired but not exhausted;  I offered her a bit of dry
food, and she has seized it and is sitting up and eating again.

Well, that was over quickly, anyhow. I had just fed them, so I wonder if
it *is* something to do with eating too quickly/having a scraped
throat... I'll have to see if I can get some more of the baby food mix;
that might help her put on a bit of weight, and slip down more smoothly
to boot. At the moment I'm handing over individual bits, as she doesn't
seem inclined to go down to the bowl just yet. (Annabel, of course, is
busy ferrying the whole lot up and hiding it in their bed.)

And now she's choking again! And it's not that she didn't nibble the
stuff properly, because I watched her... :-(

This is perfectly ordinary rat biscuits, "Reggie Rat", which she has
been eating all her life. And it's not a new bag or anything; we're
halfway through the packet.

Annabel appearing to do a Dracula, holding her down and trying to get at
the throat, but I think she's only hoping to grab some food out of
Natalie's mouth... No, she *is* biting; Natalie is squeaking :-(

And the 'episode' seems to be over again. Only a minute or two, nothing
like the thirty-minute struggles that were going on before, but no
wonder she's looking a bit frazzled. I wonder why Annabel is being so
nasty to her? (More squeaks and bites.) She is quite deliberatelyu
coming out of the bedroom and biting her, and I don't think Natalie is
feeling up to fighting back :-(  Is Natalie's strange behaviour
alienating her?

I've taken her out of the cage and given her some Weetabix mushed up in
water with a little sugar, which is the softest thing I can think of:
she seemed to be hungry, but was rejecting any more dry biscuits (and
if she has been choking those up regularly, I'm not surprised). Having
eaten a bit of that, she is now looking much brighter and showing a
distinct interest in the rest of the Weetabix, which is in my bowl!

Trundle trundle across the floor... all right, you can lick the
spoon :-)

She has still eaten practically nothing.