Hospital visiting

It's a good job I don't have to take a bunch of grapes each time I hospital visit these days...

Since my last posting where I told you about the death of two of our little boys I've been scrutinising the surviving rodent population like a woman possessed, convinced that each of my lads, one after the other, is going to leave me. Last week after the demise of Gibbs I decided that Malone Wasn't Well so I took him out of Rat Towers and installed him in the hospital cage along with an indignant Tim. Tim lasted in hospital for about 10 minutes before I realised that it wasn't a good idea to put a 500g rat in good health in a small cage with a 350g rat who appeared to be ailing despite the good natures of both parties concerned. Exit Tim, enter Nurse Grissom. I'm not sure whether Grissom said something to offend Malone, but even THAT combination wasn't working because a mere five minutes had passed before Grissom was sat, arms folded, Outside The Bedroom Ball in hospital stating in no uncertain terms that This Situation Was Untenable since he had Nowhere To Sleep due to Malone Taking Up All Of The Ball. Exit Grissom - he left his nurse's uniform behind and entered Rat Towers in time to stalk off to Find Somewhere To Sleep since he was Exhausted after spending All That Time Out In The Cold.

For five days Malone was on his own in hospital, being cuddled, fed titbits and generally being made much of and receiving twice daily doses of antibiotics fed to him by his loving mummy on a piece of digestive biscuit. Said mummy was still obsessively monitoring her little boys for signs of ill health, expecting to find cold little bodies every time she looked into Rat Towers - luckily this vigilance paid off because I spotted that the World's Favourite Rat (Colin) appeared to be nursing a poorly left hand, and was sporting a red nose. Fingers were immediately pointed at LB since he's usually the guilty party when it comes to Biting Other People and Colin was tenderly removed from Rat Towers by a worried Mummy Rat. His arm appeared to be swollen and a touch warm, so Malone's feelings had to be put to one side and Colin was placed in hospital as his ward-mate. More antibiotics and digestive biscuits. Colin is a very laid-back boy even when the owner of a poorly hand, so it wasn't too much of a challenge to get the two patients happily installed together. However, the hospital cage isn't very big and Colin is a very big boy - around 650g would be my best guess - so he does tend to more wear the cage than live in it.

After maintaining a round-the-clock vigil on my poor, sick rodents I've decided, in consultation with Daddy Rat, that we'll put the fully-medicated Malone back into Rat Towers tomorrow AFTER we've cut his nails - these appear to resemble the talons of an old crone rather than the little pink fingernails of a rat. I'm very squeamish when it comes to nails - human, rat, feet, toe; I hate them all - so I'll do the holding of Malone while Daddy Rat does the cutting. Colin can then have the hospital ward to himself and won't have to Sleep Outside as he is doing now since Malone has taken up permanent residence in the ball. We've also decided that the four little babies - Worf, Data, Hawkes and Flack - are big enough now not to escape from Rat Towers so they're being introduced to the collective tomorrow too. That'll be fun for everybody since they're like greased lightening and appear to be forty rats rather than four.

Another thought that is being considered is the removal of LB from Rat Towers.... I hate the thought of isolating him but he really is incredibly nasty - Daddy Rat has bites on his hands and arms from where LB went for him as he was trying to find Simon, who had gone missing. LB has caused Delko, Tim, Malone and now Colin to have injuries (in Tim's case the injury turned into an abscess and cost him a month of pain) so I think the time has come to act.

I'll keep you informed. The ironic thing is that there isn't a nicer rat than LB when he is out of the cage - it's GETTING him out that causes the problems. Full body armour with additional gauntlets aren't sufficient protection when LB decides that he's in a Bad Mood. I'm not looking forward to explaining to him why he's now going to be residing in the Nursery Cage On His Own....